Before he told a gathering of national media operatives that his decision to contest the 2020 polls was not a given, I had already made such a suggestion in at least a couple of my columns going as far back as 2007, when the party was heavily divided between factions in favor of the presidential candidacy of the former Justice Minister, on the one hand, and supporters of Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, the current Trade and Industry Minister, whose presidential candidacy was widely rumored to be staunchly backed by then-lame-duck President John Agyekum-Kufuor.
My premise for a one-term presidency for Nana Akufo-Addo was primarily predicated on age, and the fact that I sincerely believed that a remarkable lot could be achieved within the constitutionally stipulated 4-year presidential term, contrary to what a lame-duck Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor wanted the Ghanaian electorate to believe. And so far, Nana Akufo-Addo has eloquently demonstrated that, indeed, much that is worthwhile can be achieved even within the short temporal span of six months. There are humongous challenges, of course, in particular regarding the implementation of certain critical policy initiatives, such as the fee-free Senior High School electioneering campaign agenda, which the government intends to implement beginning this coming September.
The undue delay of the foregoing policy initiative has been primarily due to the grossly incompetent tandem governments of Presidents John Evans Atta-Mills, late, and John Dramani Mahama, both of the present main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), that had caused the loss of a huge amount of financial resources belonging to the Ghanaian taxpayer. President Akufo-Addo’s radical approach to the stoppage of the environmental genocide wreaked by small-scale miners, called Galamsey, which was for nearly a decade tacitly endorsed and smugly promoted by former Presidents Atta-Mills and Mahama, is unimpeachable. To be certain, if he continues with his yeomanly and laudable efforts at reversing the Galamsey Menace and bringing it to a definitive halt within the next three-and-half years, President Akufo-Addo could well go down the annals of Ghana’s Fourth Republican political history as the most responsible and foresighted leader of the first-half of the 21st century.
If he is also able to successfully implement his fee-free SHS policy, Nana Akufo-Addo would very well stand in a class all by himself. Former President Agyekum-Kufuor’s National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), while equally significant, would relatively not mean much because of his widely known and acknowledged factional divisiveness that tragically ensured that a visionless and narcissistic National Democratic Congress’ leadership would assume the reins of governance and effectively dismantle this most vital and progressive national healthcare policy initiative and enviable legacy. Indeed, had President Akufo-Addo not ensured the pumping of millions of cedis in the form of arrears payments into the coffers of the NHIS, shortly upon assuming the democratic reins of governance, this Agyekum-Kufuor capstone legacy would have effectively suffered the fate of the legion failed programs of previous eras.
Now, should he decide not to contest the 2020 presidential election, Nana Akufo-Addo would be expected to wholeheartedly throw his support behind the presidential candidacy of Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia. There will be absolutely no room for playing an “Aliu Trick” here, as was deviously and scandalously done by a pathologically ethnocentric Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor. That is, unless Nana Akufo-Addo is also in the patently ungodly business of ensuring the effective and permanent collapse of the New Patriotic Party as we presently know it.
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