First, there is this long-term preparation of the Bawumia shot at the Presidency. It started way back and immediately after the 2020 elections. That plan included playing and shoring up the novel credentials of Dr. Bawumia being the likely first president from the Muslim extraction; get CEOs of state institutions to be ardent underground members of the Bawumia dream team or presidential election team.
And soon the skylines would be adorned with Bawumia billboards announcing the desire of the sitting Vice President to give a shot at the NPP presidential nomination. Shockingly, that was the period Ghana was on tenterhooks awaiting the verdict of the Supreme Court in an election petition case filed by former President John Dramani Mahama on the conduct of the 2020 presidential election.
Bawumia billboards were first to announce the NPP Breaking the 8 Mantra. Paradoxically, Breaking the 8 has assumed a national appeal for almost every NPP official, ministers of state and other party adherents. Perhaps, what many were not aware was how “Get the Bawumia Elected as NPP’s Presidential Candidate 2024” agenda started thickening within the corridors of power, to the extent that it became virtually, a condition for the appointment to public offices.
Also, there was a deliberate and orchestrated agenda by the Bawumia-presidential candidacy groomers to get majority of delegates to be sympathetic to the Bawumia cause; and to ensure that MMDCEs who eventually were approved by the President become instant adherents of the Bawumia agenda; and also, to ensure that the MMDCEs swear through their faith that they will play obeisance to the choice of the administration or the establishment. In this case, the Vice President.
Most delegates are also expected to follow the latter proposition as the MMDCEs’; and as this writer discovered, the well-orchestrated plan and the implementers have been taking through thoroughly their paces to the extent that the Bawumia machinery has now become like a fetish among some NPP delegates. That explains why some of the party’s young executives whose utterances show their biases for the Vice President’s presidential call have been appointed to key state institutions.
Some of these CEOs are heading the National Lotteries Authority (NLA), the Bui Dam Project, the Tema Oil Refinery among others. There is even the allegation that the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation is expected to serve as the hub for the donation of funds to support the Bawunia candidature. Beyond that these CEOs have been charged to use their relationships with other public serving public officers to also contribute funds to support the Dr. Bawumia’s presidential drive.
For the MMDCEs, they have a very crucial role to play in the Bawumia scheme. The delay in the appointments of some of the MMDCEs, this writer can state on authority, was one of the deliberate ways of eliciting from them their commitment and loyalty to the Bawumia agenda. And with the juicy and lucrative pegs that come with the office of MMDCEs, the aspirants gleefully obliged to the caveat.
And so, when they were sworn into office, they were very clear in the minds and quietly their commitment to paying absolute attention and support to the Bawumia candidature. As heads of the local areas, the MMDECEs serve as perfect conduits to the Bawumia candidacy at the grassroot levels. The MMDCEs are therefore, expected to work on delegates who will be eligible to vote in the NPP presidential primary and get their consensual agreement at all costs; and through all possible means that shall include possible monetary inducement and a swear to deities about their loyalty to Dr. Bawumia and his presidential cause.
