It smacks of an arrogant sense of entitlement when a man who aspires to become presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) goes about saying it is his turn because he has queued for long.
Ah. If it is indeed your turn, then why partake in the competitive primaries in the first place? If it is truly your turn, why still join the queue instead of hoping to take what you claim is rightfully yours?
Your actions, anxiety and even utterances from your campaigners clearly show this loud claims of “it is my turn”, “it is my turn”, is nothing but a meaningless slogan that is rather making the candidate sound, self entitled, arrogant, vexatious and annoying.
The NPP is not going for an acclamation.
The party’s elders aren’t going for an ordination service.
Neither are they going for a coronation, enskinment or enstoolment.
The party is going for internal elections where a huge Electoral College would be presented with some five or so aspirants for one to be elected as presidential candidate.
Among this set of aspirant-hopefuls is the one who has deluded himself into believing it is his turn and wasting everyone’s ears with same fantasy as though the political party was practicing a monarchy where the heir apparent is predetermined.
At this point, what the NPP needs is the most winnable candidate and not the one who has contested the most times. Indeed, it is not the number of times one has sat to rewrite secondary school remedial examinations that passes one into the university.
The NPP needs a candidate whose credentials, persona and attributes makes him the most attractive political commodity who when marketed would win the party the 2024 presidential race.
It is not a matter of which candidate’s parents contributed what to the party decades ago; long before most of the current generation of voters were even born.
The party needs a servant-candidate who is ready to fold up sleeves and work knowing he has been given a duty and not one who comes to the table with a sense of entitlement thinking the party owes him a favour.
It is that thinking of entitlement that leads to statements like ‘take your party and let me also take my government’; after all it is my turn and I have queued for long.
The NPP is truly at a rather slippery curve in its history and it is yet to prove if it can negotiate that curve in a politically correct fashion.
So far, apart from a few lose talks here and there, in negligible quantum, the candidate hopefuls have conducted themselves fairly well.
We can only hope and pray it gets even better.
We can only hope and pray the party’s delegates would put aside all emotions and prejudices be they ethnic, religious or other petty motivations and elect the most attractive political commodity.
Certainly, it is not the turn of any particular individual. It is an all inclusive political party that operates on the principles of democracy and not a monarchy.
