So soon the D-Day for the Special Delegates Congress of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to prune down the presidential aspirants from ten to five is here.
Tomorrow, at 17 venues across the country, the over 900 special delegates will decide which of the five stand a better chance to compete on the November 4, 2023 congress to be elected to lead the NPP to ‘break the eight’ in December 2024.
We cannot talk about the contest so far without commending the party leadership and candidates for the increased visibility they have given the party, albeit some ugly moments that broke the heart of the rank and file of the Elephant Family.
The teaming supporters who turned up to listen to the candidates give hope to the fact that contrary to claims that the NPP has become unattractive, is the phantom of the NDC and its allies in the media, academia and civil society.
The Osono is still alive and God willing it will make history by ‘breaking the eight’ in the political democratic history of Ghana.
It is important to point out to the aspirants to be mindful of party unity in order to ‘break the eight’. Some of the utterances undermine the cohesiveness of the party at this stage of the march towards the coup de grace in 2024.
At certain stages, the campaign degenerated into a contest of name-calling and in some cases insults that do not portend unity in the family. Some of the candidates do not want to be associated with President Akufo-Addo’s legacy although they claim to identify with the Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition.
It is sad that although all the candidates are seasoned politicians who know that governments all over the world have challenges fulfilling their campaign promises, some of them are just behaving like NDC politicians from within.
Claims like some NPP programmes and policies are on a stretcher as well as the government has inflicted hardships on the people are just unfortunate and arming the NDC with ammunition to use against the NPP in 2024.
Whoever will emerge from the five must be given very strict guidelines and code of conduct that go with sanctions in case of breaches.
The Prof Mike Oquaye Vetting Committee and the Ntim-led leadership must regulate the campaign going forward to prevent any aspirant from pissing inside the party to destabilise the plan by President Akufo-Addo to hand over to the presidential candidate of the NPP.