Amidst chants of Blay, Blay, Blay The New Patriotic Party kept us all awake till 4am before announcing their new dawn.
His loyalty to the party had been questioned, alas he simply defected from a party with an ideology diametrically opposed to the one he now leads.
The CPP it was said had nothing in common with the NPP.
But here he stood, after more than two years warming a chairmanship bench, for a suspended chairman, Afoko, whose suspension left the party in crisis some 12 months before the last election but who we all knew will never return.
Freddi Worsemao [“they said I am dead”] Blay can now claim that position be his, permanently for the next four years. This is his second victory, a massive one in 2016 for the party, and now this, a significant one for himself with 3,021 thumbs up from the delegates, leaving his arch rival Stephen Ntim trailing with 2515 votes. He showed he is politically aware rejecting the temptation to gloat and instead calling for unity.
“We are happy but measured in our happiness” he said. But most importantly he added, “we will now mend some of the problems that during the contest we had created for each other”
Mr. Ntim had fought a good battle but lost the war. His accusations of vote buying after Mr. Blay financially engineered the purchase of 275 buses for the party failed to stick. He is a veteran in the game of political defeat, his fourth in a row for the same position. But this defeat could yet be the most painful, beaten by an outsider, a defector. And yet he had no problem yielding all to the greater good of the party.
“My loyalty to the New Patriotic Party is not shaken by what has taken place. You can continue counting on Stephen Ntim as usual” he declared.
This was a contest that delivered all that glittered to a President who was once bitten in Tamale four years ago. He got all his men elected banishing the terrifying ghost of Afoko forever. Sammy Awuku who led the youth wing won the national organizer position with a landslide.
John Boadu, another beneficiary of the 2016 Afoko crisis will now occupy the General Secretary’s position permanently. His victory is a final nail in the coffin of the suspended General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong, part of the Afoko gang.
The youth wing of the party also has a new leader, Henry Nana Boakye, AKA Nana B. He was swept to victory obliterating his closest rivals Kamal Deen and Dominic Kwesi Adua securing twice as many votes.
Kate Gyamfua will be Womens Organizer and Abdul-Aziz Haruna Futah, Nasara coordinator. There are three vice chairpersons: Rita Talata Asobayiri, F. F. Anto and Michael Omari-Wadie.
Up next is the context to elect a flagbearer for the party. Will Nana Akufo Addo go unopposed, will he go at all, will Vice president Bawumia finally get his shot and who will master the courage to mount a challenge to the Akufo Addo dynasty now cemented with this delegates conference. Your guess is as good as mine.