A presidential hopeful of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, has completely distanced himself from a recent public commentary by Mr. Hopeson Adorye, a party stalwart.
It has been alleged that Mr. Adorye recently passed a comment which sought to suggest that, at most, the Northerners in the NPP were only good for the position of vice presidential candidates and possibly vice presidents, but not as presidential candidates to lead the party.
His alleged comment comes on the heels of a much-anticipated fierce contest between Vice President Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia and the current Minister of Trade, Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, from the Northern and Southern parts of the country respectively.
Though the two now appear to be the major contestants for the nod to lead the NPP into the 2024 General Elections, it is envisaged that others are likely to join the race. This statement has been greeted with strong disapproval and condemnations from the general public, no matter how hard Mr. Adorye has tried to explain himself to justify whatever he meant.
The widespread condemnations that have greeted Mr. Adorye’s comment stem from the fact that such tribal bigotries are not just politically incorrect, but so dangerous to our peaceful coexistence as a people with a common destiny. This, could perhaps, explain why some people have called for his head, while others have also appealed to Mr. Alan Kyerematen to disassociate himself from such a needless comment and disown Mr. Adorye from his camp in the run-up to the party’s presidential primary.
Following the incessant calls and condemnations, Mr. Adorye has since rendered an apology to the people of Northern extraction for his infamous statement, saying it was twisted for political capital by opponents of the party.
Mr. Kyerematen has, however, officially distanced himself from Mr. Adorye and his comment, which meant to suggest that the time has come for Mr. Alan Kyerematen to lead the NPP after three unsuccessful attempts in the past, but not anybody from the North.
In a statement, he said: “I passionately believe that it is impossible or inappropriate to diminish or distort the fundamental contributions and stature of any of the founding fathers of the NPP tradition, and I encourage party faithful to focus on this indisputable fact”.
He continued; “Indeed, it is the dedicated service of all the celebrated, as well as unsung heroes and heroines of our great Party that has, and continues to give life to the NPP, till this day.”
In the first place, the paper is never enthused with the comment by Adorye, and it is, therefore, happy that the messenger might have realised that his statement was politically incorrect and has since apologised for same.
In the paper’s view, such ethnocentric commentaries must be highly avoided in our body politic, because of their potential to break the peaceful coexistence that has been the bedrock for the foundation that has sustained our democratic gains since the inception of the Fourth Republic.
The Chronicle, therefore, finds this action by Mr. Kyerematen to distance himself from the tribal induced sentiment to be not just necessary and timely, but also apt and precise as the party gears towards presidential primaries to elect a flag bearer.
For nothing at all, others will have more better lessons to learn from what has happened to Mr. Adorye where, perhaps, his desire to project his preferred candidate has gone bad and rather set him up against others.
Fast-forwarding, the paper would like to caution both trained and untrained political communicators to understand the fact that in political communications every single message must be succinctly communicated devoid of ambiguity.
This is because in a highly contested political space like ours, any form of ambiguous political statement would be exploited for political expediency with an accompanying effect on an individual or a political party as a whole.
It is also important to understand that the average Ghanaian voter is now more discerning and would not just accept a candidate because of tribal commentaries, as some people seek to portray.
It is in view of this that the paper would like to call on political parties, their front-runners and followers to pay attention to the current dynamics in our body politic and place good policies, ideas and achievable promises at the heart of their campaign messages, but not needless tribal sentiments.
