Countdown to ‘Number One’ for Ghana's Election 2024

After a little health scare the other day which plonked me unto a hospital bed for four days (for which reason I was unable to make an appearance on this page last week and do apologise), I am thankfully back on my feet. 

In such periods of confinement, with precious little to do except stare at the ceiling or the television set with its rather bland programmes, the mind tends to do a speed race, cruising through one’s frailty and mortality, with smiling nurses turning up every now and then to administer one liquid or the other through a cannula, emptying it into my poor veins, or to extract my precious blood for various tests.

The relief when I finally sauntered out of the hospital and into the warm, sticky night air was akin to being released from a long prison spell. Thank God for his infinite mercies.

Frantic dash

All this while, between long spells of napping, the political temperature in the country was not far from my mind. How could it?

After all, the end of the long electoral race is nigh. I must admit it was quite cathartic engaging in spots of political discussions, picking up some hot political gossip and even engaging in some debate with some of my visitors. 

Across the country, frantic mopping up of votes is ongoing with the final tape in sight, in some cases with the path smoothened by live cockerels, rice and oil, among others. No stone is left unturned in this final home stretch, with political sinews being stretched to breaking point.

It is Christmas come early for some citizens, and I bet some voters wish every December 7 was Election Day. At this moment, the voter is a young damsel, with political activists drawing every tactic from under their sleeve to woo her inky thumb come Saturday, their tongues dripping with honey as they switch on the charm.

The enigmatic, late Sir John’s famous admonition to ‘fear delegates’ is applicable to voters, so it is only a naïve political strategist who would take images of teeming crowds or assurances by voters for granted.

Even then, both leading parties – NPP and NDC – are proclaiming loudly and confidently that they will win the race, with a lot of sabre-rattling on social media platforms. Naturally, there are those who feel their party is in a very comfortable lead indeed.

Peace industry

In all the eight elections held so far under the Fourth Republic, the nation almost always sits collectively on the edge in the run-up to the elections, with concerns about violence prior to, during or after the elections.

Unfortunately, these fears have on some occasions found expression, even though thankfully the violence has been restricted to various flashpoints.

In turn, and perhaps understandably, these fears and actual incidents of violence have engendered what one would call a ‘peace industry’, preaching against electoral violence, with concerts, walks, advertisements, songs and the signing of peace pacts, complete with a National Peace Council, set up by Act 818 of 2011.

Quite honestly, I think it is a tad embarrassing that 32 years after embarking on our democratic journey, we have not been able to transition to an election as just another event where voters turn up at the polling station, vote, go home and await the results, jubilate or weep into calabashes and then the nation just moves on, as pertains in other parts of the world.

That violence, or the fear of violence, is still part of our election architecture, to the extent that we need a peace industry to calm everyone’s nerves, is, in my view, an indictment on our democracy, and I look forward to the day when this industry will become redundant in its entirety. That is when we would have arrived as a mature democracy. 

Kumasi-bound

I must say I am quite delighted with the nature of the energetic campaign that the NPP, led by Dr Bawumia and Dr Prempeh, has run over the past few months, with a focus on the issues, covering literally every square inch of ground in this country. I feel upbeat about the outcome.

Come tomorrow evening, I will be making my way to Kumasi’s Ashanti New Town, where my name sits comfortably in the register. I cannot imagine my vote sitting anywhere else.

With Kumasi as the epicentre of the NPP’s electoral stronghold, the city holds a special place in election night dynamics, whichever way the results go, and the explosion of joy and the all-night celebrations on its streets in December 2016 still rings in the ear. Of course, Ashanti Region will be pivotal to this year’s elections, as always. 

By a stroke of good luck, my polling station sits right outside my house. Usually by 5am, benches and chairs have already been assembled in a queue outside my living room window by enthusiastic ladies (mainly), keen to press their thumbs before heading off to the market.

I usually relax on my balcony taking in the sights until the queue is almost non-existent before strolling a few metres to vote.  

My task on Saturday is simple. At the appointed time, with my presidential and parliamentary ballot papers to hand, my inky thumb will not hesitate to descend rather firmly on the space for ‘Number 1’, both for Dr Bawumia and my brother Nana Agyei Baffour Awuah as my next Member of Parliament.

My civic duty done, I will retire to my living room and crack open a bottle of cold beer, with champagne sitting quietly on ice in anticipation of the big announcement. 
It is indeed possible. 

Rodney Nkrumah-Boateng,
Head, Communications & Public Affairs Unit,
Ministry of Energy.
E-mail: rodboat@yahoo.com