“You have given me a first-class assistant in the form of Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia. He has been of great help to me and my government.” – President Nana Akufo- Addo speaking to the people of Walewale on 22 June 2021.

The result of the NPP presidential primaries for the coronation of the preferred candidate to contest the 7 December 2024 presidential election is a foregone conclusion in accordance with the long game of Nana Akufo-Addo’s Government of family and friends.

On 11 August 2022, I demonstrated in my examination and analysis of Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game that President Akufo-Addo had by appointing certain individual loyal members of the Danquah Institute and the family and friends to head the security and intelligence apparatus of the Republic fulfilled the first step of his intentions to ensure the eventual nomination of his preferred presidential candidate to contest at the 2024 parliamentary and presidential elections in an endeavour to break the 8, come 7 December 2024.

On 1 May 2023, I also examined and analyzed the potentiality of President Akufo-Addo exercising his executive powers to appoint the administrative head of the judicial arm of government in a manner intended to ingratiate his Government with the exercise of the administrative functions of that arm of government. I caveated this by subjecting my conclusion to the integrity of whomsoever he appoints attaining the level of independence, impartiality and integrity of Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Mr. Justice Tom C. Clark of the United States of America who performed their judicial duties in accordance with their conscience and not who appointed them to the judicial branch. I concluded, upon the facts and evidence, that the president had undertaken a “covert influence peddling in favour of his preferred candidate” for the 4 November 2023 internal New Patriotic Party (NPP) primaries.

On 29 May 2023 during an address to the nation, President Akufo-Addo stated that: “I must make special mention of the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who was my reliable source of support in the darkest and most trying moments.” The choice of occasion, style of delivery and rendition of the praise for Dr. Bawumia did not escape the media that these words were intended as an endorsement by the President of his deputy as his preferred candidate for the 2024 presidential election amongst the NPP candidates who had declared their intention to contest for the internal party primaries on 4 November 2023.

Nine out of the ten contestants for the first round of the NPP primaries on 26 August 2023 to prune down the number of presidential candidates to contest the 4 November 2023 primaries to nominate a candidate for the 2024 presidential election have belatedly begun to come to terms with the smooth machinery imperceptibly established by the family and friends within the NPP to disable the nine contesting candidates from monitoring the fairness and impartiality of the 26 August 2023 super delegates congress and presidential primaries.

Contrary to accepted internal constitutional procedures and practices of the NPP, Jubilee House political appointees, Ministers of State, Members of Parliament, Heads of MMDAs, and party executives from the national, regional to constituency levels have been instructed to sing their master’s voice to show their preference for the President’s most favoured choice to win the 4 November 2023 internal contest for the 7 December 2024 presidential election.

This explains the petition by nine of the ten contesting candidates demanding that the 26 August 2023 elimination elections be centralized instead of decentralized as the NPP executives had determined. The reason for this demand by the nine contestants for the

centralization of the electoral process for the internal primaries should be obvious to any objective observer of the unfolding NPP presidential contest.

First, as I had predicted and stated in my previous articles on this subject matter, it has now become as obvious as daylight to the nine candidates that there is a preferred candidate by the President and his Government machinery whom he has handpicked to succeed him as President on 7 January 2025. The “establishment candidate” as two of the contesting candidates have referred to him, is the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who has at his disposal all the instruments of state power within the presidency.

Dr Bawumia can, consequently, reach all the regional polling stations nationwide and recruit polling agents for the 26 August 2023 elimination primaries. The remaining nine contestants do not have similar resources, reach, and power. When the late Vice President Aliu Mahama contested then-candidate Nana Akufo-Addo for the right to represent the NPP as its candidate for the 2008 presidential election, President John Agyekum Kufour never permitted the blatant abuse of presidential powers manifested today in favour of Dr Bawumia.

These nine potential candidates cannot, therefore, adequately ensure the supervision of a free and fair election on 26 August 2023 at the super delegates congress and presidential primaries. The probability that 26 August 2023 will be a rigged election is more of the norm than the exception. Missing out on being one of the five nominated contestants for the 4 November 2023 internal primaries in these circumstances gives no assurance to the eliminated candidates that they lost fairly and impartially at a free and fair contest.

Secondly, there can be no certainty that those progressing to the 4 November 2023 internal election have not been selected in such a way as to ensure the emergence of the establishment candidate as the winner of the electoral process on 4 November 2023. In the plan of the long game, there is no way in which the president’s preferred candidate is not going to be part of the winning candidates on 26 August and to emerge as the flagbearer on 4 November 2023.

While I predicted the coming events on 11 August 2022 and 1 May 2023, nine of the ten presidential candidates and members of their campaign teams are now waking up to the reality of the long game for the coronation of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as Nana Akufo- Addo’s preferred candidate for the 7 December 2024 presidential election. For instance, Richard Nyamah from Alan Kyerematen’s campaign team cries out in an interview with Starr FM as follows:

“He [President Akufo-Addo] is trying to impose Bawumia on the NPP. We want a level playing field nine out of ten say that put us together in a room. Let’s look at each other eyeball to eyeball and tell ourselves the truth and see how that election turns out…The Ministers, MPs, and CEOs who are wasting public resources following one candidate are doing it of their own volition? It’s obvious you can’t see it?”

George Opoku Amponsah, the spokesperson for Kennedy Agyapong’s presidential campaign in an interview on Accra 100.5 FM strongly opposed the proposal for regional super-delegate conferences and questioned why Dr. Bawumia was opting for regional elections while the other nine candidates prefer a centralised election. He also expressed concerns about the lack of fairness in a regional election and highlighted the fact that the endorsement of the Vice President’s candidature by regional ministers, regional chairmen, and constituency chairmen could influence the outcome of those electoral processes.

As expected, and in accordance with the President’s long game to break the 8 and depart from former President John Agyekum Kufour’s submission to the electoral will at the 2008 presidential election, the petition of the nine presidential aspirants for the centralization of the special delegates election on 26 August 2023 was flatly rejected by the national NPP apparatus on 20 July 2023 under the dubious democratic pretence that there was a level playing field for all the contestants.

The contestants believe that despite the cards being stacked against them there is the lean possibility that Dr. Bawumia could be defeated at the 4 November 2023 internal primaries. As Boakye Agyarko puts it: “But you see incumbencies have advantages and disadvantages. It depends on the propensity of the height you attach to it.” My examination and analysis of the available facts and evidence point to the fact that this prediction for the 4 November 2023 contest is an illusion even though the contestants are entitled to live on the illusion of hope. I contend that the 26 August 2023 special regional congress and presidential primaries has 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.

Like it or not, the chickens are coming home to roost in the manner I concluded from my examination and analysis of Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game to break the 8 at the 7 December 2024 presidential election. As I stated on 1 May 2023:

“Be that as it may, the next stop in Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game is unfolding in the nature of the level playing field being deployed especially for the contestants for the NPP’s presidential primaries to take place on 4 November 2023 which appears to be informed by the outcome of Nana Addo’s preceding long game and covert influence peddling in favour of his preferred candidate.

Every reasonable and objective Ghanaian should by now know that Nana Akufo-Addo’s previous promise for a free and fair internal NPP flagbearer election was made for reasons of the political expediency of the moment and not intended to be honoured in its observance.

Unfortunately, so many Ghanaians, including myself, have been deceived by his outward presentation of earnestness and apparent sincerity to have trusted his words in the past only to realise belatedly that it is not all that glitters which is gold.

But the fate of the nine presidential candidates contesting for the 26 August 2023 and 4 November 2023 internal primaries is pathetic. These are men who have a lot to offer this nation. They believe in democratic representative processes. They have consequently, committed their fortunes to take part in and contest a free and fair election to determine who should lead their political party at the 2024 presidential election only to come to the realisation that the cards were stacked against them by their own president and party executives.

The NPP Constitution has already been violated by the President and other establishment endorsements of Dr Bawumia. The argument, therefore, that the procedure being adopted now was adopted in 2014 is spurious because in 2014 the NPP was in opposition and the likelihood of incumbency advantage and presidential overreach was absent.

The other political parties intending to contest the 7 December 2024 presidential election ought to be watching and following carefully how the NPP and its government is organizing its internal primaries. It is a harbinger of what could happen at the national polls, come 7 December 2024. The vigilance of the opposition political parties on 7 December 2024 will determine the success or failure of Nana Akufo-Addo’s long game to break the 8 and his intention to demonstrate to former President John Agyekum Kufour that he failed in his supervision of the 7 December 2008 presidential election in which Nana Akufo-Addo lost that election under his watch and presidency. But nature’s justice may defeat the long game.

Martin A.B.K Amidu

July 23, 2023
Martin A. B. K. Amidu 23 July 2023