AKUFO-ADDO HAS ANOINTED BAWUMIA AS HIS SUCCESSOR TO BREAK THE 8
NANA AKUFO-ADDO HAS ANOINTED MAHAMUDU BAWUMIA AS HIS SUCCESSOR TO BREAK THE 8 BY HOOK OR CROOK.
BY MARTIN A. B. K. AMIDU
“The outcome for the 4 November 2023 NPP congress and presidential primaries is certain – Nana Akufo-Addo’s anointed candidate, Mahamudu Bawumia, will be nominated for the 2024 Presidential Elections as programmed.” – Martin Amidu, 31 October 2023
The New Patriotic Party presidential primaries came to pass as ordained by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and the family and friends’ anointed successor to the President as pre-programmed was crowned the leader of the NPP in fulfilment of the dream that “Mahamudu Bawumia is a safe pair of hands to give Nana Akufo-Addo the third term in office he seeks using a surrogate.”
The euphoria of the moment brought out what otherwise had been a covert long planned game for the succession to the one person trusted to protect President Nana Akufo-Addo and his regime of family, friends, cronies, and hangers-on in the quiet enjoyment of their loot from the public purse after 7 January 2025.
Nana Akufo-Addo could not hide his elation and happiness about the success of his long rehearsal for winning the 2024 Presidential Election by hook or crook for his anointed successor as the NPP flagbearer. Nana Addo on the night of 4 November 2023 at the Accra Sports Stadium in addressing the NPP faithful gathered for the introduction of the new party leader stated that:
“I want to thank every single NPP person here that for the last 16 years – 2007, 2010, 2014, and 2020, you have conferred your confidence in me to lead this great party, you have honoured me an honour I can never ever forget, and you have allowed me to serve the party, through the party, to serve the people of Ghana. I have done my best but I still have one more task to do and that is with all my strength, all my energy, to help the new flagbearer, Mahamudu Bawumia win the election of 2024.” (Emphasis supplied - See 5 November 2023 Myjoyonline.com)
Nana Akufo-Addo has done his best since losing the 2008 elections with Mahamudu Bawumia, and upon assuming the presidency together on 7 January 2017 with all their strength, all their energy, to actualize the long game of helping Mahamudu Bawumia to win the 4 November 2023 presidential primaries as a stepping stone to win the 2024 Presidential Election using incumbency advantage and abuse of the security and electoral process provided for under the 1992 Constitution. Listen yourself to the 6.21 minutes self-adulation of Nana Addo on: Ghana cannot afford the return of the NDC, especially under the leadership of Mahama - Akuffo- Addo - YouTube.
The 4 November 2023 presidential primaries might pass for being free on the ballot day for the 200,000 special delegates from across the country made up mostly of NPP appointees and political office holders of various categories for the secrecy of the vote. The total valid votes were 193,346. The rejected votes were 900 and the turnout was 94.63%. But it could not pass for being transparent and fair because it was opaquely and unfairly organized from the beginning of the electoral process under the thumb and control of Nana Akufo-Addo and Mahamudu Bawumia to achieve a pre-programmed outcome under the smokescreen of a democracy.
The real hero and winner of the 4 November 2023 presidential contest was Kennedy Ohene Agyapong who against all odds and vilification by the Presidency, Ministers of State, a majority of his colleagues in parliament, other public and party office holders secured a clean 37.41% of votes and winning only two regions out of the sixteen regions of Ghana. Without incumbency advantage and abuse of public resources exhibited by the establishment and its candidate, Kennedy Agyapong would definitely have carried the day.
Kennedy Ohene Agyapong’s sportsmanship and generosity in playing along in conceding defeat and pretending that the process was fair and transparent must be admired by those who are wired to operate upon the pressure of public opinion. Unlike Alan Kyerematen and Boakye Agyarko, Mr. Agyapong agreed to take part in a flawed process in the hope of a miracle that will bring him victory. It would have looked like sour grapes if he did not play along and praise the flawed process.
Nana Akufo-Addo has jumped the last hurdle to actualize his long game to break the 8 by the nomination of Mahamadu Bawumia as his successor flagbearer of the NPP for the 2024 Presidential Election. This cynical achievement is at the same time a wakeup call to all other political parties who intend to contest the 2024 Presidential Election against the anointed Vice President, Mahamudu Bawumia, to be alert and to mobilize to police every move by Nana Akufo-Addo and Mahamudu Bawumia to ensure that the processes leading to the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections are actually free, fair, and transparent to the letter and the spirit of the 1992 Constitution.
The packed Electoral Commission (EC) and how it goes about organizing for the 2024 elections from now onwards has to be closely watched, scrutinized, and policed by each political party not in government. The Ministry of National Security and the leadership of its agencies selectively appointed on partisan grounds have to be closely watched and marked consistently. The use or misuse of the Ghana Armed Forces for uncalled for internal security operations towards the 2024 elections have to be closely watch and contested. The administration of justice, particularly, the conduct of the Chief Justice in the processes of handling electoral matters have to be subjected to citizens’ vigilance and defence of the Constitution. Let us for God’s sake remember Gabon and protect the 1992 Constitution.
The danger posed by the EC was particularly evident even in the internal presidential primaries run by the NPP’s packed EC, as in Prof. Ransford Gyampo’s observations about the declaration of the 4 November 2023 election results by Director of Elections, Dr. Serebour Quiacoo when he wrote that:
“…Can’t the EC be accurate in the declaration of results? The last time in 2020, they corrected themselves more than 5 times in declaring the election results. Yesterday too, they announced 91% instead of 61%. They could also not do a simple computation of percentages of votes for the rest of the candidates. This is unprecedented.”
The time has come to take seriously the warning about the intention of Nana Akufo-Addo to abuse the spirit of the 1992 Constitution to achieve an outcome at the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections favourable to him as an insurance in his retirement. Ghana’s democracy, the rule of law and constitutionalism enshrined in the letter and the spirit of the 1992 Constitution must be defended by all patriotic citizens even if the heavens fall.
Martin A. B. K. Amidu
5 November 2023
The continued political witch-hunt against Ken Ofori-Atta by the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) and the Government of Ghana through sections of the rented Ghanaian media any time he prevailed in defending his rights under the INTERPOL and the US Immigration laws is nauseating and shameful.
The public is entitled to know the reasons Ms. Justice Akuffo assigned for her resignation to enable us to determine what the government had done to warrant the unprecedented step of a former Chief Justice resigning from the Council of State in the history of the 1992 Constitution. The Government also owes the people of Ghana an explanation for the delay in disclosing and informing the public of the tendering of her resignation.
Every election the NDC has won under the 1992 Constitution has consistently been based on promises to the electorate to implement policies anchored on the core values of probity, accountability, transparency, and social justice underpinning the 4 June 1979 Revolution and Constitution of the NDC: the 1992, 1996, 2008, 2012, and 2024 elections speak for themselves. The NDC’s ability to win the 2028 elections will depend on how the electorate perceives the party’s commitment to these values. It is too early for sycophancy, gloating, and flaunting of awards about successes when one remembers the adulations of the early years of the Akufo-Addo government.
The inerasable truth is that Dr. Bawumia is not the first incumbent Vice President and presidential candidate to concede defeat to his opponent under the 1992 Constitution to reduce electoral tensions in an atmosphere charged with suspicion of the ruling government intending to rig presidential elections.
I cannot as a person born in the then NT recommend Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as a person with the trait of honesty, integrity and selfless service exhibited by our forebearers from the NT to the Republic of Ghana to be elected on 7 December 2024 as President symbolizing a representation of northerners on an NPP ticket for Ghana. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is not only an opportunist and pretender, he has lost track of the high moral character associated with his own biological family and the forebearers of Northern Ghana.
The corrupt and looting government machinery of Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia are so power drunk that they only see the ordinary Ghanaian as a zombified idiot whose vote can be bought after dangling a few television pictures, news broadcast, and other media propaganda of completed and uncompleted projects to becloud his memory. Let us defend the Constitution by demanding probity and accountability, now on 7 December 2024! Let us defend the Constitution by demanding probity and accountability, now on 7 December 2024!
The deep polarization and intense emotions generated by the governance of the country under the Akufo-Addo/ Mahamudu Bawumia administration shows that the future stability of the 1992 Constitution is dependent on how free, fair, and transparent the 7 December 2024 elections are seen to have been managed and conducted by all the public institutions entrusted with supervising the elections. The time to defend the 1992 Constitution against election interference is NOW!
The fact that the acting President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, stands to be a beneficiary of the Bawku Traditional Area crisis precipitated due to the indolence of the Government only two months to the 2024 elections should the registered voters in the six constituencies in the UER be unable to exercise their franchise freely and fairly, comes into focus with his inaction as acting President during the October 2024 conflict period.
I exercised my right as a citizen of Ghana to bring the petition myself and I have no regrets for doing so despite the rigged outcome smacking of the exercise of the relics of imperial medieval powers. I am, however, confident that history shall absolve me when the content of my petition and the review submitted by the Chief Justice become available to the public for its evaluation. When the vendetta and trials of mere suspects in the court of public opinion start again, the utility of my petition will be remembered.
“Self-preservation is the first law of nature”, and it would be political suicide for Nana Akufo-Addo to assent to the LGBTQ+ Bill being passed by Parliament into law. Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game, the aura he has built around himself as a democrat in the Western tradition, and all the ingratiation efforts he has invested in, will come to nought should he assent to the Bill upon passage. The fact that other citizens knew the difficulty the Bill was going to face when it got to the desk of the President was articulated by no less a person than Minority Leader Ato Forson.
The problem with the manner the NDC Press Release was couched is that from my personal experience whosoever has been nominated by John Mahama as his running mate must have been invited and offered the nomination and he or she must have accepted the nomination already. The Ahwoi’s and their cohort, who now claim ownership of the NDC, speaking through Kwasi Ahwoi, named Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as the successor to the National Democratic Congress flagbearer John Mahama after 2024. John Mahama is tied to their apron strings.
The NPP and the NDC should be careful about quoting what I said or wrote in the past out of context to spuriously support allegations of corruption or mismanagement against each other for the purely propaganda purpose of deceiving the electorate for their votes and abandoning them thereafter. I hope that when eventually I determine by a considered examination and analysis of the facts and evidence the most corrupt of the two political parties, they will each accept my verdict without question since I have become their authority on this issue.
The 2024 elections are not going to take place in a vacuum. They are going to be informed by thirty years of electoral history under the 1992 Constitution. The Fourth Republican Constitution, 1992 underscores, like the three preceding Republican Constitutions, the sovereignty of the people as the foundation of the State. The citizen has since the 1969 Constitution been accorded a sovereign right to seek interpretation and enforcement of the provisions of the Constitution in the Supreme Court with guarantees of fundamental human rights and freedoms subject only to the provisions of the Constitution.
The facts, information and intelligence, and the available evidence demonstrate that the Special Prosecutor, William Kissi Agyebeng, is so desperate to protect the pervasive and endemic mismanagement, the culture of corruption, massive staff recruitment malpractices, and public procurement malpractices within the OSP by resorting to blackmailing the government with publications of former government appointees he is prosecuting to rally public support against possible impeachment for misconduct.
The cancer of a Special Prosecutor that has infected the OSP for the past two years cannot be allowed to metastasize to infect the healthy working relations between organic law enforcement, the citizen, and the administration of justice guaranteed under law. Consequently, patriotic citizens ought to be protecting the 1992 Constitution and the sanctity and independence of the judiciary by invoking the provisions of Section 15(3) of Act 959 for the removal of the Special Prosecutor from office.
Big Brother President Nana Akufo-Addo lied his way to the political office of President of Ghana to fight corruption only to supervise the most perceptually corrupt of all the Governments in Ghana in the Fourth Republic since 7 January 1993. The 1992 Constitution does not empower Big Brother President Nana Akufo-Addo to insist upon an investigation into a paltry 4 million Euros alleged Airbus SE-Ghana suspected corruption when he has pushed under the carpet the Gargantuan Agyapa Royalties Transactions procurement malpractices and corruption detailed in a 64-page report.
It is time to take seriously the warning about the intention of Nana Akufo-Addo to abuse the spirit of the 1992 Constitution so he can achieve an outcome at the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections favourable to him as an insurance in his retirement. Ghana’s democracy, the rule of law and constitutionalism enshrined in the letter and the spirit of the 1992 Constitution must be defended by all patriotic citizens even if the heavens fall.
Mahamudu Bawumia is a safe pair of hands to give Nana Akufo-Addo the third term in office he seeks using a surrogate. Whether Nana Akufo-Addo will succeed in actualizing his long game with Mahamudu Bawumia at the 2024 elections will unfold after his nomination on 4 November 2023. Nature’s justice will ultimately determine the final verdict.
I contend that the 26 August 2023 special regional congress and presidential primaries have been pre-programmed in such a way that the margin of victory will be overwhelming for Dr. Bawumia and constitute an invitation to the delegates at the 4 November 2023 election to return him without the necessity for a runoff and the possibility for any ganging up as projected by some of the candidates. It was pre-programmed as a coronation with the trappings of a democratic contest.
I have lived under threats of assassination, armed robbery, and the burning of my house, from this regime since 16 November 2020. The late Victor Newman aborted discussions to assassinate me then. These threats intensify any time I exercise my right to defend the Constitution just as I did on 28 June 2023 and 30 June 2023. There was a covert attack on my residence at dawn on Monday 3 July 2023. President Nana Akufo-Addo, is ultimately responsible for anything violent that befalls me or my residence. I shall not back down from defending the 1992 Constitution. No Ghanaian patriot must be cowed by threats of those violating the Constitution.
The Government’s attempt to escape investigation for suspected corruption arising from the Gold Mafia documentary and confessions of Alistair Mathias, the President’s good friend, through the side door of a purported threat of a defamation action is arbitrary, lacks candor, and constitutes a blatant abuse of the powers of Government under the Constitution. It is too late in the day for the President to be allowed to run away from consequences of his own endorsement of the “Anas Principle” [you may never know that the person you are giving the bribe to or receiving it from may be an undercover agent]. Nana Addo is now reaping what he sowed.
Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game was borne out of an agenda he conceived after his narrow defeat at the 2008 presidential elections with Dr. Bawumia as his running mate, and the lack of a long game by Mr. J. A. Kufour to have ensured a victorious outcome at all costs. Never again must that happen under Nana Akufo-Addo’s watch as President of Ghana. While Kufour exhibited better traits of a constitutionalist and democrat during his tenure as President, Nana Akufo-Addo has shown himself to be an autocrat working with the letter of the Constitution but subverting its spirit and core structural principles or doctrines.
President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, did not deny being Alistair Mathias’ friend in his response to Al Jazeera’s request for his comments. The argument that Nana Addo could not have been Mathias’ lawyer when the president himself does not remember, is spurious and diversionary. Nana Addo is an admitted friend of the alleged kingpin gold smuggler and money launderer for gold deals. Period! Befriending a criminal gang member and/or financial architects is typical of previous conduct of the President of Ghana.
Nana Akufo-Addo would not have abused the spirit of Chapter Seven (7) of the 1992 Constitution on the sanctity of the right to vote and the Electoral Commission if We the People had not in the past five and half years condoned the Government’s several abuses of power and impunity. By failing to act to defend our Constitution, we emboldened him to ignore the views of the majority of citizens and to do as he pleases. But all is not lost. Nature has its own way of dispensing justice to humanity
This examination and analysis of the “Galamsey Economy” documentary provide citizens with the materials to see beyond the stunts and swindles that the Presidency, and Anas Aremeyaw Anas with his Tiger Eye PI, tried to pull over the public, and reveals the motives of political self-interest underpinning each stunt and hoax undertaken by them. Citizens are also provided with the materials with which to have the courage to defend and protect the 1992 Constitution from scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, like the President and the Vice President who lied their way to the Presidency only to strain a gnat but swallow a camel.
Elected members of parliament are sacrificing the national good of our country for their personal selfishness and partisan interest, contravening the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution. Their actions are the sole reason why for some time now, “Everyday things are getting worse” for the economic and social survival of ordinary Ghanaians. The selfish economic and political power motives underpinning the divergent positions and tactics that both sides of the House used to remove two ministers from office demonstrate to Ghanaians that these members of parliament cannot be relied upon to fight for what our citizens need.
Mr. President, in these difficult economic times you have brought upon the nation of Ghana, you cannot lead the resolution, because you are an inherent part of the problem. Our people are suffering under your failed and mismanaged policies and stewardship, and your November 2022 Budget is going to impose further austerity upon Ghanaians. Listen closely to the echoes of history and avoid replaying the discordant notes of past Governments that cost this nation dearly – for as Mark Twain once said: “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme”.
This year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is to be the excuse for Ghanaians being asked to tighten their belts while the political elites loosen their belts and feed fat on our sweat. We should not wait for the IMF to be used by the authors of our economic hardships to blackmail the nation and ram an austerity budget down our throats without any consultation for our inputs into and acceptance of the proposals. We have a duty to ask for transparency and accountability now.
President Nana Akufo-Addo has achieved finality in his deceptive long game with his recent national security apparatus appointments. If confirmed, these appointments will be a sign that Akufo-Addo has captured the National Security Secretariat and apparatus towards his electoral agenda for the 2024 parliamentary and presidential elections. While appearing to follow the letter of the law in making appointments to public office, the President’s long game substantively breaches the Constitution’s fundamental spirit of integrity, transparency, accountability, and merit – resulting in the actualization of a calculated and deliberate intention to undermine the 2024 electoral process. Ghana must always be put first.
The arrest and detention of Oliver Barker-Vormawor, the Convenor of #FixTheCountry, and the bail facilitation for Mr. Kwame Baffoe, the powerful Bono Regional Chairman of the governing political party, demonstrates the partiality with which the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed to citizens might through the exercise of the investigatory and prosecutorial discretion in the system of criminal justice administration at the level of the executive branch of government has been wittingly or unwittingly abused in the matter of the “Kyei Mensah-Bonsu’s E-Levy cake for his 65th birthday” contrary to article 3(2) of the 1992 Constitution…