Dr Samuel Sarpong,Former Ashanti Regional Minister in erstwhile Former President John Dramani Mahama’s administration has said that it is a truism that Ghana is indeed at a crossroads.
According to the unmatched Politician in Ghana ,Our collective aspirations as a people is in peril and the future, viewed through current occurrences is bleak and getting worse by the day.
“Whether we as a people will salvage this situation or perpetuate it depends largely on the choices we make today.
Paramount amongst those choices are the kind of leaders we will count on to steer our dear country from the impending implosion we are undoubtedly heading towards under our current leadership.”He maintained.
The political Messiah however noted that “There are a plethora of reasons for our current precarious situation but I will limit myself to what I believe is the most important one; leadership.
It is trite that leadership is cause and every other thing is effect. Also, this writeup will limit itself to the confines of the internal dynamics of the NDC as a party in our quest to select the next standard bearer, not only to compete for power in the next general elections, but to transform the fortunes of our country from the current quagmire in which we find ourselves.
I have taken time to analyze what our options are as a party with regards to our leadership landscape and I crave your indulgence to make a case for retaining president John Dramani Mahama as the party’s flag bearer for the 2024 general elections. There are many convincing reasons for my choice but I will share only five (5) with you the teeming members of the umbrella family.
1. John Mahama has a good record to run on:The general consensus amongst Ghanaian voters is that Prez Mahama covered himself in glory with regards to infrastructure development.
Mahama put his administration on a different pedestal with respect to infrastructure development in the annals of Ghana’s history. Therefore, it is not far-fetched to assume that future NDC candidates, especially in 2024 would be running on this monumental record.
The question that needs asking is, why let another person run on his record if the man himself is available, willing, and able to run on his own record? Why settle for a clone if you can have the original? I am told that it is not by accident that the word original contains the word origin.
Any candidate that the NDC selects would find it difficult to run any inspiring campaign without commandeering the achievements of the John Mahama administration. The best predictor of what someone would do is what they have already done. Unless there is any doubt in the party regarding the man’s record, why would the party run a candidate without a record at the expense of the one with an enviable governance record?
2. John Mahama is the steadier hand we need:
Perusing the current leadership landscape of the NDC in particular and Ghana in general, JDM provides the NDC an added advantage due to his enormous experience as a former president. The party cannot lose the benefit of the enormous experience Mr. Mahama has acquired as president and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Hindsight is always 20-20 and time has indeed vindicated JDM. The ex president made difficult decisions in difficult circumstances and not all of them produced the intended outcomes. He made no apologies for doing what is right instead of what is easy and those who criticized him and saddled him with everything wrong with the country have all come to realize how unfair they were to him. Time has provided us a basis for comparison and most right thinking Ghanaians have concluded that he is a better manager of our country and its resources than those we currently have. That baptism by fire that events of his time in office took him through is a trough of experience that would be invaluable for better decision making when the people of Ghana give the NDC the mandate to govern come 2024. We would need to hit the ground running because the stakes are too high and the people of Ghana are desperate for solutions. They will not have any patience for anybody coming to learn on the job and this is where JDM’s experience will inure to our benefit.
3. John Mahama is a visionary who believes in youth empowerment:
It is not uncommon to see our leaders give lip service by repeating contemporary buzz words such as youth empowerment, youth participation in governance and youth employment. These are important metrics that any serious country with visionary leaders must be cognizant of. For a country whose age structure shows that 57% of our population are under the age of 25 ( Indexmundi, 2020), any leader who encourages youth participation in governance is our best bet for the future. If the biggest chunk of the population feel that you are governing with their interest in mind, they will support you. John Mahama, before these buzz words were popular had already envisioned it.
Apart from serious policies that were tailored to the needs of the youth, he also brought youthful appointees to the decision making table through appointments. At the time, he was crucified and vilified for it. Now that we have a government that has ignored the needs of the youth, his decisions have aged well. Giving young people a chance to help shape the destiny of this country we so desperately love should be a quality we seek in our leaders and current events bear that out. John Mahama will win the NDC the youth vote because he cared for them before it was fancy to do so. NDC members and Ghanaians in general know that our best days as a country is in our future and not in our past and young people would continue to be instrumental in bringing to reality our collective aspirations. Therefore, a president who recognizes this in both words and in deed should not be chastised but rather encouraged. John Mahama proved with his time in office that he believes in the Ghanaian youth and I have no doubt that the feeling is mutual.
4. John Mahama is the Most Marketable Political Product in Ghana Currently :
I would like to remind the teaming supporters of the NDC that politics and the art/science of winning power is, amongst other things, a popularity contest. I use the phrase “popularity contest” loosely because in our body polity popularity of candidates is and would remain a huge factor in the decision making process of the electorate at the time of casting their ballots. Therefore, popularity correlates positively with marketability.
John Mahama is a household name whose popularity has soared even higher in the last six (6) due to the bad governance that the current NPP government has visited on the good people of Ghana. It will be amateurish both tactically and strategically on the part of the NDC to relinquish that advantage by running a new candidate who will require huge investment in time and money to market. It will be a rookie mistake and anybody who makes such suggestion is bereft of ideas on how to win power.
In politics we optimize our advantages and minimize our liabilities if they cannot be eradicated. John Mahama’ s marketability is an advantage that puts the NDC miles ahead of its competitors and we should for no reason relinquish it. It is smart tactically and strategically because it would not require huge resources to market an already known product and would allow the party to focus it resources on other important areas during the general elections. John Mahama gives the NDC that advantage compared to any other candidate.
5. John Mahama’s Candidature Signals Continuity and Conviction :
In the 2016 presidential election, the NDC garnered 44% of the total valid votes cast. This was at a time when incumbency fatigue had set in due to the fact that the NDC as a oarty had been in power for 8 years. In the 2020 election that number ticked up by three (3) percentage points to 47% which is a huge number in politics. This number ought to be analyzed through the lens of the huge incumbent advantage that his opponent had. Nana Addo had been in power for only 4 years and had not exhausted the 8 years that has become normal for Ghanaians to give to parties in power. Also, using its incumbent advantage the NPP government used intimidation and bloated the national budget solely to influence unsuspecting Ghanaians to remain in power. In spite of these shenanigans by the ruling party, the data suggest that JDM is on an upward trajectory. This shows that a huge number of Ghanaians still view JDM positively and would readily vote for him to continue his good works. If you combine that with recent occurrences and scandals in government and the untold hardship that this government and its aparachiks have visited on the ordinary Ghanaian, JDM would easily secure the 50 plus one votes required to win the presidential election in 2024. There is no sane reason for the NDC to tinker with what is bound to be a good outcome in 2024. It is not just my opinion, the data suggest that JDM is our best bet and we should heed to it.”Dr Samuel Sarpong made these revelation in a statement copied to Broadcastergh.com today.
Source: Ayisah Foster|The Punch Newspaper
