Arthur K is no analyst to determine NPP fate – Kofi Jumah

The former Member of Parliament for Asokwa, Maxwell Kofi Jumah has poured scorn on suggestions for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to review factors that led to its 2008 and 2012 electoral defeat or be stung yet again in 2016.

Dr. Arthur Kobina Kennedy, a member of the party who gave the counsel on Thursday, said he was disappointed that the party was spending crucial time jostling for who leads the party into elections 2016 when organisational challenges and glaring shortcomings remain outstanding.

He postulated that per the goings on in the party, the NPP was working hard to become the minority in Ghanaian politics, besides the party being far from ready to do battle in 2016.

But Kofi Jumah said the NPP needed no such introspection because it had performed creditably at all polls in Ghana except that the party had been robbed of victory in many instances. He added that Arthur Kennedy cannot be taken seriously as an analyst after he failed in his own bid to lead the party as presidential candidate. Were he a good analyst, he said Dr. Kennedy could have foreseen the fate that befell him and accordingly pull out.

Dr. Kennedy and Mr. Jumah spoke on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen programme.

While Dr. Kennedy condoled the entire NPP family for the 2012 electoral defeat as well as their unsuccessful legal challenge to the presidential results at the Supreme Court, he said the party ought to be guided by its slogan of moving forward and take appropriate steps for a better future.

He said it is a lie should anyone claim that the party which repeated its 2008 mistakes at the 2012 polls and got the same result, was battle-ready for 2016 without an introspection and corrective measures.

“We don’t know the mistakes of the last election, we don’t know the mistakes of the party, we don’t know who made mistakes, we don’t know whether our message was right and we are going straight for flagbearership, we are not serious,” he said.

Dr Kennedy said a serious party would examine the causes that led to the defeat and what lessons there are to learn as well as find solutions to why it is winning only two regions out of 10 when in former President Kufuor’s time the NPP could win six regions. All the problems, he said, are well documented in his conversations with the party leadership and in his controversial book, Chasing the Elephant into the bush.

Dr Kennedy said the NPP remains the natural governing party of Ghana but is currently embroiled in some disputes with segments of society thought to be the party’s natural allies – the judiciary, the Electoral Commission and the Asantehene – pointers to the fact that the party was working its way to become the minority.

But Kofi Jumah said while he agreed with Dr. Kennedy that the timing of the jostling for the flagbearership was wrong, he believed the party had won every election in the country and needed to focus on the conduct of the election, the Electoral Commission and the corrupting influence of money on the polls. He claimed that even in instances where the party won the polls, the margins were substantially reduced through forged data. The NPP, he said, already had the vast majority of the populace behind the party.

He reiterated his often repeated claim that Ghana is no democracy but a make-belief-pretentious-democracy with a corrupt electoral system by which the NPP can never hope to win an election until it is overhauled. If he had his way, he would ask the NPP not to contest any polls any longer because the system is set against them.


Story by Isaac Yeboah/Graphic.com.gh/Ghana