Dr Richard Anane Springs From Obscurity With A Bang

His strong words clearly stoke the embers of a silent proxy war struggling to break into the open.
He is a medical doctor and practiced the profession to the hilt, prior to the presidency of J.A Kufour from 2001 to 2009.

He became one of the key figures of that period, and as was imagined of him, he became the Health minister under the seal of President Kufour. Later, a reshuffle sent him to the Roads and Highways ministry where he stayed longer. After the first NPP left office, he went into obscurity and was almost forgotten in Ghana’s political space.

Reports had said, he belonged to the Alan Kyeremanten camp that was Akufo Addo’s main rival in the hunt for the NPP’s flagbearer position to replace President Kufour. Under inexplicable circumstances but that which some surmised to be victimization, he was left in limbo when Akufo Addo assumed the presidency of Ghana in 2017.

In breaking his silence, Dr Richard Anane has confirmed his affinity with the Alan Kyeremanten team. He says, “the aduru me so” mantra, meaning “it is a queue and it is my turn,” is relevant in the NPP, and that cap fits Alan in the race for the presidency in 2024 on the ticket of the NPP.

Causing this sensation from his obscurity, Dr Richard Anane frontally noted that the sitting Vice-President Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has no legitimate claim to the party’s flagbearer role on the criteria of who is most competent for the job, the “aduru me so” principle in the party, and disloyalty of the Vice President’s father, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia to the cause of the UP-NPP political traditions.

Dr Richard Anane holds the view that by breaking ranks with the Northern People’s Party which had a softer spot for the UP in the run-up to political independence in 1957, to join the Convention People’s Party of Dr Kwame Nkrumah, the Bawumias through their father had sowed the seed of mistrust.

He said, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia went ahead to support the PNP of Limann to defeat the PFP led by Victor Owusu who was the torchbearer of the UP in the 1979 elections, as well as becoming a member and campaigning for the NDC under Jerry Rawlings.

These reflections are likely to cause a stir in the household of the NPP where a powerful block in the party, the caucus in parliament, is rooting for Vice-President Alhaji Dr Mahamudu Bawumia. Bawumia who took a swipe at former President John Mahama, by calling his competence into question, is facing the same by some of the hawks in his party. One such critic is flagbearer hopeful Kennedy Agyapong who holds an aversion to the political aspirations of the Vice President.

For now, Dr Bawumia looks the most visible among rivals in his party on Ghana’s political plane, and it will be interesting how his rivals unpack him to scuttle his presidential ambition.

Bawumia who is the second most powerful person in the executive arm of government, draws support from holders of levers of power. What a battle we have on our hands.