NPP Primaries: why is Bawumia suddenly seen as an alien?

Ghana faces yet one of its toughest elections in just under two years as President Akufo-Addo will exit office after completing his second and last four-year term of office. His replacement in the NPP is one that will be difficult to pick as several of his trusted men gear up against each other in November. Among them is the current Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who is up against former Trade and Industry minister Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten, a long-time aspirant for the role. The NPP primaries in November will produce the replacement for the party and the main contender against the NDC’s John Mahama in 2024.

This exercise in November is an internal affair but the tone that is been set is tempting, to say the least of what could create deep cracks in the party and possibly sink it like the Titanic. There have been campaign messages from some of the aspirants whose main talk is “this is my time” and with the realization that delegates won’t consider that much when they go to elect their representatives in November, a new trend is emerging.

While Bawumia poses the biggest threat to NDC’s John Dramani Mahama for many reasons, he may not even get the chance to face the former president unless he is able to beat off the rising steam that seeks to cast him outside of the party. At the turn of the year and with just half of President Akufo-Addo’s final term set to span out, people who knew Bawumia who had long been touted as the President’s preferred replacement began to look at the roots of the former deputy governor of the Bank of Ghana. What is the message? Bawumia is an “alien” to the NPP.

NPP Primaries and the Ethnocentrists

First, Hopeson Adorye, a campaigner for Alan Kyeremanten said Bawumia was not in a position to lead the NPP as he is from the Dombo section of the NPP. According to him, anyone from the Dombo tradition (Northern Ghana) was only fit to serve as running mate and the ones from the Busia and Danquah traditions were reserved to serve as presidents. His comment was met with huge public backlash as people tagged him as playing an ethnocentric political game.

“Whenever a Danquah leads the party, the Busia side steps aside but there is a Dombo (for a running mate), and whenever a Busia lead, the Danquah side steps aside but there is a Dombo (for a running mate). As for the Dombos, they are always there (for a running mate),” he said as quoted by Pulse Ghana.

Attempting to diffuse the venom that was being directed at him, he made a statement claiming to clarify the comments he made. In that statement, he even further tossed another unbelievable card in the game; the religious card. He asked in the statement, “Akufo-Addo’s camp told Aliu Mahama and Alan Kyerematen to wait for their turns. So now what is so difficult for Bawumia to also wait for his turn after his senior Alan Kyerematen?”

Then, chronicling the party’s candidate pairing since the return to multi-party democracy in 1992, he said “In 1992, NPP presented Christian Albert Adu Boahen and Muslim Roland Issifu Alhassan. From 1998 to 2008, NPP presented Christian John Agyekum Kufuor and Muslim Alhaji Aliu Mahama.”

Also, “From 2008 up to date, NPP has presented Christian Akufo-Addo and Muslim Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. Therefore per the formula, the running-mate since 1992 has been a permanent reserved position for the Dombo’s camp regardless of whether a Dankwa protégé or Busia protégé is leading the Party as the Flagbearer. This is exactly what I said and it is supported by historical data and science,” he said according to Dreamzfmonline.

Inasmuch as Hopeson Adorye was divisive and dismissive of the vice president and also blinding himself to the tenets of competence, he nonetheless could be forgiven. He lost his job under the current administration. He claimed his dismissal was because he was considered to be supporting Alan Kyeremanten.

“God will cater for us; we will eat, Uncle [referring to the show host]; God has got us. How we toiled in opposition for Akufo-Addo to come to power, we will do same for Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen to come,” he said on the Oman FM’s Boiling Point programme. He added, “I am not a zombie…I was told that my support is not towards a particular camp so I should be dismissed. I have been dismissed. ‘Your appointment has been terminated with immediate effect.’ That is why I am stressing that God will cater for us, we will never die”.

Based on the above, you could forgive Hopeson for being bitter about Bawumia and wanting him out but then you look at it and it does not end with him. How about this?

Samuel Ayeh-Paye and the Religious Card

Another top member of the party and a former member of parliament Samuel Ayeh-Paye who is also the Eastern Regional Campaign Coordinator of Alan Kyeremanten was caught convincing supposed delegates via social media and phone to not vote for Bawumia because he is a Muslim. In the said conversation, he allegedly told the members, “We have already lost the battle of the economy. What we have left is a religious and tribal game, if you don’t have that to our favour then we are finished”.

However, as usual of most politicians, he denied using it against the vice president. He said, “I have never said anywhere that we should not vote for Dr. Bawumia because he is a Muslim. Those with evidence should prove it”.

Also, he claimed he never called anyone to discuss Bawumia’s chances or campaign against the vice president. He, however, noted that what he is alleged to have told the lady is already a fact known to the vice president.

The former Ayensuano MP told the dailyguidenetwork he is the “…Eastern Regional Coordinator for Alan and has toured the whole region” and “everywhere you will go, they say they want Alan because he is a Christian and the churches say they will vote for him”. He added, “I don’t have any problem against Bawumia or a campaign against him but the assessment on the grounds which I have always been speaking on it.

According to him, “It’s a fact that if they vote for him [Bawumia], he will send NPP into opposition, which himself [Bawumia] knows that’s why he is always moving to churches to rebuild that Christain and Islamic union. They just want to disgrace me hence using this against me,” he explained while adding that he is “ready to speak” his “mind any day and anytime”. As if that is not enough, he tried to bring in the NDC claiming “The truth is that the NDC will use that against NPP since John Mahama is a Christian and they will vote against NPP”.

It is obvious from these two incidents that Bawumia is certainly not highly regarded in the NPP. Two former MPs of the ruling party have had the platform and all they did was use it to disparage the man who was barely a decade ago their saviour and messiah as he wowed Ghanaians and the NDC in court with analysis of the pink sheets as the chief witness of the party in the election petition at the Supreme Court. He raised the bar so high that when the NDC attempted it in 2020, they were seen as a group of infantile jokes. Spare to see Bawumia was the star man that led the party to victory in 2016. And President Akufo-Addo surely wants him in there as a reward for giving him the opportunity to lead Ghana else his political career might have ended in 2016 when he would have suffered a defeat at the hands of the then Mahama-led NDC.

But Bawumia won’t have it that way so we ask, if the two previous ones could be pardoned on the line that they are bitter; one lost his job and the one his seat in parliament all under Akufo-Addo and Bawumia, then how about this?

Alien to NPP – another former MP excludes the vice president

As if going by the ethnocentric and religious cards have not been enough, the NPP then adds another and that is Bawumia has no roots in the party or is young and should wait. One such prominent member of the party to have divulged on that line of argument is a former member of parliament for Nsuta Kwamag Beposo, Kwame Asafo Adjei. The former MP is a known campaigner for Alan Kyeremanten and has argued that it is the turn of the former Trade and Industry Minister. He claimed the party is based on tradition which goes to support the earlier comments by Hopeson Adorye and that the person who has been in the party and voted for the party for a long time deserves the nod to lead.

According to Asafo Adjei in an interview on Neat FM, the vice president’s parents were NDC members and that means Bawumia is not an original member of the party. He said, Alan has worked hard for the party and now that it is his turn he deserves the chance to lead. To him, Bawumia is an “alien” to the party and should not be entertained.

He told the host as quoted by myinfo that “The NPP is a traditional party” and they “will vote for a person who has helped the party. The person who has been in the party for a long time and the person who has been voting for the party for a very long time,” according to him deserves the chance. “When did Bawumia join the NPP?” he questioned while adding, “His[Bawumia] father and mother are NDC members. Is Bawumia’s background, not NDC?”

Further, he claimed the vice president is “…alien to the party,” adding, “Before Nana Addo became flagbearer the mantra was that we knew him from the past, we also know Alan Kyeremanten from the past. When we needed help some time ago who helped us? Alan,… raised money and took the party out of poverty. It is now the turn of Alan Kyeremanten that is my observation, the person who can do the job is Alan,” he noted.

Adding weight to the former MP’s claims is a political science lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Dr Richard Amoako Baah who is a strong member of the party. He said Bawumia is not a “true blood NPP member” because he is younger than the other contenders. Also because there is friction between his camp and that of Alan’s camps so Bawumia should sacrifice for his senior since he[Bawumia] has already been in power for eight years.

According to Amoako Baah, Bawumia has been there three times with Akufo-Addo and if he wins he will spend four years and would want another four to complete the allowable 8-year term. That will be too much for just one person, this he thinks should not be accepted and the party should force him out and let Alan lead. He said due to Bawumia’s age, there is still time for him so he should step aside and let his seniors lead the party so they can unify it and then Bawumia can come back after four years.

Why Now?

In all this, the question is why now? Is it the case of “bamboo the work monkey dey chop”? Bawumia was the running mate to Akufo-Addo in 2008 and 2012 and in both cases, the number of votes the NPP got from the northern part of the country which had traditionally aligned to the NDC since 1992. Then he was in the witness box for the period of the case that spanned eight months. Again, he was at the forefront and was even more vocal and popular than the flagbearer ahead of the 2016 elections with his nicely articulated lectures about the economy.

He single-handedly pushed fear into the blood of the NDC leaders as they run out of options to deal with his intellect and eloquent oratory. Bawumia together with his boss has been terrible as the economy has exposed them and kept making them backtrack on their own words such as the declaration not to seek IMF help.

Among the many glaring failures of the government, Bawumia still may have a chance to appeal for electorates to give him the mandate as he was not the one leading the lines while the NPP led the country from 2017 till now. So why is the NPP so bent on crushing him out of the race even before it starts? And if the so-called founding members or traditional party members actually believe the delegates also believe in giving the nod based on longevity in the party but not competence, then why worry? Because the delegates would definitely deliver the verdict right if the claims are true.

It is evident that the NPP top members knew Bawumia has a pull and could manage to beat Alan and the others to replace Akufo-Addo so they want to hoodwink their way into the hearts of the delegates by using ethnocentric, tradition and religious cards. But the delegates definitely have the final say, so let’s see what happens in November. Until then, God Bless the Motherland!