At a press briefing in Accra yesterday, he defended his decision to join the race, which has six other NPP big shots contesting for the ultimate prize.
He does not want to be assessed with his inability to retain his parliamentary seat in the Central Region, saying, ‘Elections are lost and won; if you don’t understand, elections are lost and won. You can never be a politician. Indeed, if you have never lost one before, you’ve never contested one before.’
Aside that, he indicated that ‘Mfantseman was never NPP seat; if you know Ghana politics well, Central Region along the coast, has always been CPP stronghold.’
According to him, it took the intervention of the father of Kofi Totobi Quarkyi, Kwame Quarkyi, to break that jinx on the ticket of the defunct Progress Party (PP) but that was short-lived since Busia’s government did not last.
Later, he said, it became firmly controlled by Jacob Arthur who was former Central Regional Minister.
Asabee said, ‘I entered that particular area when there was a gap…and so Jacob Arthur exiting gave me an opportunity and I spotted it quickly as a politician and went in there; I was then the Deputy Minister of Information if you remember, I took it.’
Admission
He thought he should have been celebrated for that feat but was however, quick to admit that ‘Unfortunately, I think my own flamboyant nature made you all assume it was a safe seat I should hold.’
The former Mfantseman MP likened what he did to what happened in the Nkwanta North constituency where the NPP’s Joseph Nayan won the seat and later lost it to the NDC.
For him, ‘losing it is not a big deal at all’ since according to him, ‘it’s a lesson for all of us and it’s a small scale too so you pick up the pieces and learn quickly,’ insisting what happened was not a failure.
He has therefore set his eyes on the NPP flagbearership contest since according to him, ‘I could give you countless examples of who have lost something and come to take the bigger one’ – using two-time defeated standard bearer of the party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo- Addo, twice-defeated flagbearer hopeful, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen and Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku as examples.
‘Nana Akufo-Addo has lost or not succeeded in achieving what he wants to achieve before and he believes he can do it again; and he is coming forward and I believe that is right for him. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen has tried it; he couldn’t succeed and he believes he can do it. Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku tried it. Why is he coming up again? Because he believes something has happened,’ he underscored.
For him, ‘the key thing is not to give up’, quoting Winston Churchill: ‘Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to get up and move that’s what makes you a man,’ to support his claim.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
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