Are we not surprising ourselves that six years after Mahama left office with Bus Branding and a foreign contractor’s gift of a 4x4 vehicle; six years after we listened to Alhaji Dr Bawumia’s promises of “We will not borrow. The money is here”, Ghanaians are de-waxing their ears for another round of promises by saviours?

For the sake of my conscience, I will not exclude Rawlings. I can’t because two weeks after he came to power in 1982, I clapped for the Junior Jesus for threatening to go after people living in houses with more than one toilet. Fourteen years down the lane, I saw where he lived. There couldn’t have been fewer than three WCs in that house – and I am not counting Adjiringanor. In his holy anger, he killed a fellow human being for going for ¢50 loans from a bank, though he ended up going for a “gift” of undetermined millions in dollars from Abacha, arguably Nigeria’s most corrupt President and savage butcher.

My quarrel is not with Mahama promising NDC voters that he will single-handedly finance the party from now till election day. My worry is how Article 71 could lavish ex-Presidents to the point where they can come by this type of wealth and still enjoy free housing, free house helps, free-all. At any rate, some party insiders are hinting that it is the ex-President’s knee-jerk reaction to Dr Dufuor’s ‘Ahotor’ largesse to NDC constituencies.

In response to my statement last week that Mahama’s lead in the NDC flagbearer race is unassailable, these insiders tell me that contrary to what looks obvious, the race is wide open. The ex-President’s latest promise to the party, they say, shows a man who is going for broke. Of course, I still have my doubts that anybody has a chance against him in the May primaries.

Before that time, I will return to NDC politics. For now, I feel called to warn the New Patriotic Party about a possible implosion within the party, so shattering that the party may end up in smithereens. It’s been simmering for some time now, with everybody praying that that day will never come. My prayer for the party is that it shall not revisit the horrors of 2015 when bullets flew, machetes were brandished and life was snuffed out by acid.

As Joe Ghartey, Alan Kyeremateng, Afriyie Akoto, Kennedy Agyepong and Kwabena Adjepong criss-cross the country, they are constantly looking over their shoulder, hoping that they will never see Alhaji Bawumia or his shadow.

Question: will Bawumia declare? With so many vehicles running around branded with ‘Bawumia for President’ inscriptions, it seems to me that only a Rip Van Winkle will hope to wake up from sleep to hear the Vice President make a surprise announcement that he will not run.

It’s no secret that hundreds of thousands of Ashantis feel that the region needs to be compensated for literally snatching the party from the opposition in 2020. They claim – and it’s confirmed by EC stats - that Ashanti’s 1,793,773 ballots wiped out NDC’s Volta and Northern advantage. Until the Ashanti results, Mahama was in the lead. Even in defeat, he had succeeded in halving the 2016 one million deficit.   

Many a Bawumia hopeful in the party had prayed that Alan would agree to be running mate, but the Alan Team reminds the party that three times the man had had to wait. Besides he is older than Bawumia and his age (he will be 71 in 2028) may be used against him by Ghanaian voters.

I am no tribalist but the permutations are clear within NPP. If Bawumia runs, the party will want to compensate Ashanti by offering them the running mate slot

As a journalist, my fear is not a Bawumia announcement. What I fear is an implosion which may be more be more dismembering than 2008.

Well, coming events cast their shadows. What are these threats by a flagbearer hopeful Kennedy Agyepong to sink the party if they dare him? First question: what does he know? Remember, it is the same man by whose vigilance Ghana first learned about the Woyome Scandal.

Second question: If the sins of NPP are such that they are criminal, why has he waited until his empire is being threatened by GRA?

The problem with Ken’s threat is the lack of details. Is it about his taxes? Has he paid his taxes? Is he claiming that just because he holds explosive party secrets his companies are beyond the long arm of a tax office?

Remember the words of Aristotle: Lessons in life will be repeated until they are learned. Ghanaian poet Paa Kayper asks us to “Walk. Don’t run to the funeral of a man who died running”