Prof Gyampo’s open letter to Bawumia: Don’t campaign with a sense of entitlement

Dear Sir,

I have a few words to help your very difficult attempt at breaking the Eight. You must focus on your own campaign. Spend much time rebuilding the palpable trust deficit and show no sense of entitlement to anything.

It is politically tactless to respond to the one who stands vindicated by the government’s (that you are part of) inability to fulfil some key promises and the bigger hardships people are now facing than they were experiencing before your government took over office.

Remember, you were brought on board to manage the economy and your own lecture series and public utterances gave a lot of hope to many Ghanaians. But the hope of many has been dashed. Your government has dissipated the goodwill willed to it by many Ghanaians. Even among your core support base, there are complaints and regrets.

How you are able to restore lost hope in your campaign is crucial, and for starters, the way to go isn’t to popularise your opponent’s idea of having a 24-hour economy. Your political strategists should be sacked for making you speak publicly about that proposal because, in their quest to get you to rubbish it, they have succeeded in getting you to make it very popular and trendy.

Remember, it was your opponent’s response to the free SHS that made it even more popular. So, why your political strategist couldn’t shield you from this same campaign suicidal path, should be the reasoning for their sack.

This is a free political consultancy. Focus on your campaign and let your opponents do same and may the one with the best of messages win the hearts of Ghanaians. Your recent experience is not making Ken Agyapong’s public outbursts against you, an issue, and your strategy to focus only on your delegates, should guide you.

Once again, speak to the issues, stop the unnecessary mocking laughter that intersperses your public remarks, as they create a certain condescension, sense of entitlement, and show disrespect for popular sensibilities.

Do more to deal with the public trust deficit as a fine gentleman. You compound the trust deficit by forcing us to overly fraternise with Christian engagements. As a Christian, I would love it, if you decide to be a Christian too. But we all know that you won’t convert to be a Christian. You are a Moslem, so remain true to your faith and be committed to it, or else your over-fraternisation with Christendom is easily perceived as a vote-getting technique which deepens the trust deficit.

We have peacefully coexisted as Christians and Moslems and nothing should be done to point to our differences. Unintendedly, your over-fraternisations rather pronounce surreptitiously, our differences. So just leave it. We have always been together as one people and we won’t ever be disunited. That’s how come your party, a very Akan and a very Christian-dominated party, voted for you, as flag bearer. It means we have lived together, in spite of region and religion.

May these guide you in your campaign. I wish you well.

Yaw Gyampo
A31, Prabiw
PAV Ansah Street
Saltpond
&
Suro Nipa House
Behind Old Post Office
Larteh -Akuapim