“Any nation that does not honour its heroes will not long endure.” – Abraham Lincoln
Over the weekend, the Ghanaians learnt with sadness the passing of Alhaji Asoma Banda after some ill health at the ripe old age of 92.
Many of us Ghanaians know Alhaji Asuma Banda as a shipping magnate, philanthropist and businessman who owned and managed a huge conglomerate, the Antrak Group of Companies, among others.
In addition to all of these, what many people have either forgotten or are oblivious about is his role in the development and shaping up of the current 4th Republic dispensation.
In April 1992, when the ban on partisan political activities was lifted, a plethora of political parties merged.
The 13 political parties formed had quite a number of them being oriented towards the ideologies of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
These included the People’s National Convention (PNC), National Independence Party (NIP), People’s Heritage Party (PHP) and National Convention Party (NCP).
The NCP had gone into the Great Alliance with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) leading to the NCP Presidential Candidate Neenyi Kow Nkensen Arkaah becoming the running mate to Flt Lt J.J. Rawlings of the NDC.
The alliance won a convincing 58.3% and 189 seats out of the 200-member Parliament by the NDC. The NCP took eight seats with the Every Ghanaian Living Everywhere (EGLE) party also a partner in the Great Alliance winning a single seat.
The two other seats were won by independents in the Navrongo (Madam Hawa Yakubu) and another from Brong Ahafo.
With the 11.3% garnered by the minority parties all of which were Nkrumaist aligned, the outcome of the results that year showed that the Nkrumaist parties could only make a meaningful stake in the country’s democratic development if they came together.
Several efforts aimed at getting these mergers to take place were held. There were times that conclusions were even announced only for it to be truncated subsequently.
On the sidelines of all these, Al-Hajj Asuma Banda as a kingpin of the Nkrumaist groups managed to broker a merger of the NCP, the PHP and a faction of the PNC to form the People’s Convention Party (PCP) late in 1993.
With Alhaji Asuma Banda as its Chairman and Mr Seth Abloso as General Secretary, the PCP began moves in 1994 towards repositioning the PCP as a formidable force electorally.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) with Prof. Albert Adu-Boahen and Mr. Roland Issifu Alhassan as running mate in spite of its huge following ahead of the November 1992 Presidential Election had secured only 30.4%.
Due to its dissatisfaction with the electoral process which in the party’s view had led to massive ballot rigging, the NPP boycotted the Parliamentary Election held on 29th December 1992.
The rank and file of the party was very distraught and needed an early primaries thereafter.
Unfortunately, a number of internal party difficulties faced that included the challenge to the eligibility of Andrews Kwame Pianim ended up stalling the process until April 1996 when the NPP finally went to Congress.
Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor was elected with 52% to replace Prof. Adu-Boahen who received 35.7% of the vote.
As far back as December 1994, a general feeling had emerged across the country and within the NPP that there was a need for effective cooperation among parties of the political opposition if they were going to make a good impact in future presidential elections.
Thus, once Kufuor was elected, he was faced with the discussions of a party merger. Heavy discussions had been ongoing between the Chairmen of two political parties for some months (Bernard Joao da-Rocha of the NPP and Al-Hajj Asuma Banda of the PCP).
Eventually, the agreement for the alliance was signed on 18th September 1996. It was now left with two very thorny issues – which of the two elected presidential candidates will be alliance’s candidate as well as the common list of the alliance’s parliamentary candidates.
Discussions on these issues were extremely thorny and acrimonious at some points running into months. Each of the two parties had a delegation of fifteen for the discussions as well as the special Electoral College.
They had two rounds of voting to determine which of the two will be the main candidate and who will be running mate. After several days ahead of each round results ended in 15-votes apiece.
The PCP argued that their candidate was already the Vice President and could only move up as President while the NPP argued that they had the most experienced candidate in John Agyekum Kufuor.
Unless one of the delegates compromised his/her hard stance, they could vote forty times and still end up in a deadlock.
At the third vote held after a two-full day engagement, Chairman of the PCP, Alhaji Asoma Banda did the unthinkable by voting against his own candidate thus breaking the tie to enable NPP’s John Kufuor to become the alliance candidate.
Mr. John Kufuor obtained 16 votes as against 14 by Neenyi Kow Arkaah. Finally, the deadlock had been broken, and the Great Alliance now had a presidential candidate.
Next was the decision on which of the 400 candidates from the two parties will make the list of the alliance for filing.
Here again, the two parties advanced serious arguments for each of the 200 constituencies on the basis of strength of the various candidates, history of the party in those areas, strength of the national party, etc.
While the PCP sought to fight for equity in seat sharing of 200-apiece, the NPP argued that the real strengths of the parties on the ground be used.
Mr. Peter Ala-Adjetey for example is quoted as arguing that we are not sharing apples among parties where equality will be the yardstick but, in this case, they were looking for winnable candidates.
He therefore argued that they “were looking at the strengths of the parties on the ground”. Inspite of the heated acrimony, Alhaji Asuma Banda in his capacity as alliance chairman was extremely tactical in managing the alliance.
Unfortunately, bad blood and various tactics led to the breakdown of the arrangement. For instance, whereas the alliance selected Kwesi Pratt as the Alliance Candidate for Ayawaso East, the NPP managed to file Sheikh I.C. Quaye at the Electoral Commission as the candidate on the last day of filing.
This happened in a couple of constituencies across both parties in the alliance.
Eventually, these long winding and acrimonious negotiations ended up depriving both parties time to undertake effective campaign and Kufuor received just above 39% after undertaking only three months of electioneering campaign.
One thing remains clear – it was the political sacrifice of the sitting Vice President by his party Chairman Alhaji Banda in voting for Kufuor that got him to become the Great Alliance Candidate in the 1996 General Elections.
It was that same decision that subsequently gave him the upper hand to be elected as NPP’s candidate for the 2000 General Elections which he won convincingly.
For all his contributions to national development, Alhaji Banda was awarded honorary degrees from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as well as the University of Cape Coast.
He also received lifetime achievement awards from several entities as well as decorated by the State as a Companion of the Order of Volta in 2008.
Unfortunately, once Alhaji Banda stepped down from office as Chairman of his party and Member of the Council of State, he took backstage from active partisan political activities.
Indeed, the late Asoma Banda has served his country well and contributed to the growth and development of this Fourth Republic dispensation.
May the soul of this great patriot rest in perfect peace while their lives serve as an example to us all!
Engr. Eric Atta-Sonno