Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen – An Embodiment Of Betrayal, Self-Centeredness And Aggrandizement In Ghanaian Politics
1. When my old lady in Kete-Krachi told me that no matter how much a snake sheds skin, it is still a snake, I didn’t understand her. When she told me that people are more what they hide than what they show, I didn’t understand her.
When she also told me that politics is a game of betraying trust for personal gain, I didn’t understand her. However, I am now beginning to understand the old lady after closely studying the political life of Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen.
THE MOST PAMPERED POLITICIAN
2. To start with, there is absolutely no gainsaying that Alan Kyerematen is one of the luckiest and most pampered members of the NPP. In this Fourth Republic, the NPP has had 4 terms in government. Alan Kyerematen is arguably the only man in the NPP who has been given the rare opportunity to serve at top Government Level in each of the 4 terms, until he voluntarily resigned last year to chart a new political path.
3. One man that stood by Alan Kyerematen and supported his political cause like none other, is President John Agyekum Kufuor. In fact, even when everybody in the NPP virtually rejected Alan, President Kufuor was there for him. People even accuse President Kufuor for going overboard and abusing incumbency just to make sure that Alan succeeded him in the 2007 presidential primaries of the Party.
4. At some point, Alan was even using a helicopter belonging to the State to campaign in internal party contest. Till date, Alan is the only politician in Ghana’s history to have used a helicopter to campaign in internal primaries.
Despite the establishment cooking everything for Alan to eat, he failed big time. I was one of his ardent supporters at the 2007 Congress. I left Legon very disappointed, but, as a democrat, I respected the decision of the party delegates and expected my candidate, Alan, to do same and proceed to campaign rigorously for the newly elected candidate. But that did not happen.
5. Not only did that not happen, but Alan also actually wrote a letter communicating his decision to resign from the NPP, with a flimsy excuse that his supporters were being sidelined. Can you imagine? Even in SRC elections, if you strongly support a candidate and he losses, do you expect that you become the favorite of the candidate that has won and that too, at the expense of those who supported him to win? Which serious politician in this world will resign from his party merely on this account?
6. The legendary BJ da-Rocha had cause to caution the NPP not to persuade Alan to come back as that would not be in the party’s interest. He predicted that Alan would sooner or later become a “disruptive factor in the party, a stumbling block and a loose cannon”.
The Party, unfortunately, did not listen to this wise counsel and went ahead to persuade and readmit Alan back to the Patry, only for him [Alan] to turn out to be the disruptive factor, the stumbling block and the loose cannon that BJ da-Rocha spoke about.
7. I perfectly agree with the first National Chairman of the NPP (BJ da-Rocha) when he also made the point in 2008 that, “it is obvious that he [Alan] has no deep-rooted commitment or loyalty to the NPP”.
Alan’s association with the NPP has always been hinged on what he would get from the Party, and not what he would give to the Party. It has always been a marriage of convenience at his instance and on his terms. It has always been about his selfish interest and egoistic gratification. He never cared about the interest of the Party at large. No wonder he [Alan] is the only politician in Ghana to have resigned from his Party, not once, but twice.
8. Alan is also the only top Government Appointee of the NPP (both under President Kufuor and Akuffo-Addo) who HAS NEVER COME OUT STRONGLY TO DEFEND THE RECORDS OF THE NPP. He only comes out to speak if the matter at hand directly concerns him. He always wanted to be everybody’s darling including the opposition. In my 3 decades+ life on this earth, I am yet to see an inward looking and self-centered politician like Alan. It is not surprising that he is the only politician I know who has never won any public elections in his entire life, whether at WTO or in Ghana. Indeed, greed and self-aggrandizement have no place in our body politics.
THE BETRAYAL AND PERSONAL ATTACKS ON PRESIDENT KUFUOUR
9. It cannot be gainsaid that Alan’s decision to ditch the NPP and President Kufuor, the man who ‘discovered him’ and brought him into the limelight even against all odds, is arguably the biggest political betrayal in Ghana’s history. Today, I hear Political Science Lecturers in our Universities are using Alan Kyerematen’s political life to teach their students the practical meaning of political betrayal. That is the lowest any politician can sink. And to think that Alan has not only ditched President Kufuor but is also attacking him, makes me sick.
10. I monitored one of Alan’s recent interviews where he referred to President Kufuor as “that man called Kufuor”, and virtually took the quintessential Statesman and revered former President to the cleaners. President Kufuor’s only offense was that he has endorsed the Presidential Candidate of his own Party, Dr. Bawumia, and asked Ghanaians to vote for him. Please, listen to me, Mr. Alan Kyerematen, you say you are no longer a member of the NPP, then why should you have a problem if the NPP supports their own member and candidate in an election? Is it your Party?
11. So, you were expecting the NPP and President Kufuor (the party’s most successful leader, arguably) to eulogize and endorse you, a member of a different political movement that is competing against the NPP for the presidency of our country? How vainglorious could you get! How can the gods make the “omnipotent and omniscient Alan Kyerematen” behave this way and yet, Ola Rotimi would tell us that the gods are not to blame? Who else is to blame, if not the gods?
THE RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY
12. Because the NPP is a party that believes in the oneness of God and serves Him with utmost good faith, He does not forsake the Party. If you commit a sin against the Party, the Almighty will expose you. Alan lied to all of us when he said the reason he left the NPP was because the Party had departed from its established democratic principles, and that, the Party’s 2023 presidential primary was rigged for Dr. Bawumia.
But, because God wanted to expose him, Alan forgot himself and later claimed that Ghana needs a Christ-like leader because this country is largely made up of Christians. So, to Alan, since Dr. Bawumia belongs to Muslim minority, he is unfit to lead this country.
13. The stark truth is that Alan sees himself to be above everybody particularly Alhaji Dr. Bawumia. He just cannot imagine a Muslim, who came to meet him in the NPP beating him in party primaries. Alan thinks highly of himself and comes across as a “religious bigot”. As far as Alan was concerned, the NPP should have just handed over the Flagbearerhip to him on a silver platter, without any contest.
That is why you would find him using campaign slogans like “Aduromeso” [it is my turn]. He had no regard for what the party’s rank and file thought. He is a superman, who’s entitled to lead NPP and Ghana now. That’s his birthright and nobody can question it.
14. He has even told us that even President Kufuor was supposed to come after him. He said he did President Kufuor a big favor when he decided not to contest him in the 1996 presidential primaries of the NPP, because he [Alan] would have beaten Kufuor. Clearly, somebody who thinks he should have been President before Kufuor, would definitely have issues with Nana Akufo-Addo overtaking him, and for it to dawn on him that Dr. Bawumia ‘of yesterday’ has also overtaken him, you should understand his extreme frustrations. Why is everybody stealing Alan’s birthright? That is not fair to him, I guess.
ALAN TELLS NPP THAT HE IS TOO BIG FOR THE JOB OF AN MP
15. When the sitting NPP MP for Ayawaso West Wougon, Hon. Emmanuel Kyeremanteng Agyarko died in November 2018, the NPP took a decision to make Alan Kyerematen, who resides in the constituency, the next Parliamentary Candidate without going through any internal primaries. When this decision was conveyed to Alan, he called the bluff of the Party and suggested that he was too big for the position of MP, insisting that he was going to be the party’s next flagbearer, as of right. Maybe, just maybe, or maybe not, if Alan had accepted to be the Candidate, we may not have experienced the Ayawaso West Wuogon byelection violence.
ALAN IN BED WITH JOHN MAHAMA FOR FOREIGN MINISTER JOB?
16. Alan Kyerematen has only one motive in this election, which is, to make Dr. Bawumia lose the election to prove his point that he should have been the NPP’s Candidate, not Dr. Bawumia. Alan is not contesting to win, because he knows he cannot win, and everybody knows that. Indeed, some of his close associates have said that too.
Even Cheddar of the New Force, who joined the race yesterday, is ahead of Alan according to all the polls results that have come out. In pursuit of this motive (operation destroy NPP), Alan has entered into a political alliance with the NDC since they both have the same objective.
17. You will notice that apart from granting media interviews in Accra and attacking Dr. Bawumia, Alan only campaigns in NPP strongholds particularly the Ashanti Region, where he is constantly playing religious and tribal cards. The recent attacks on President Kufuor by both the NDC and Alan’s Movement for Change is only the latest installment of series of coordinated malicious agenda by the Alan-NDC alliance to destroy the NPP’s support base.
18. I have gathered credible information that as part of the mutual agreement, John Mahama is to appoint Alan Kyerematen as Minister for Foreign Affairs if they are successful in the elections. Alan’s side of the bargain is to make sure that the NPP does not cross 70% in Ashanti Region.
Unfortunately for them, now more than ever, the Ashanti Region is very energized and resolute to come out strongly to vote more than 80% for NPP, owing to the illustrious works of some party leaders in the region particularly Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh. Indeed, goodness will always triumph over evil.
Assalamu alaikum
Iddi Muhayu-Deen, ESQ.
[email protected]
#ForGodAndCountry
Source: Lawyer Iddi Muhayu-Deen
