Daddy Lumba: I Will Sing For NDC

Reports reaching News-One suggest that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) may have a hectic time wooing Ghanaian musicians to its campaign platforms for the 2012 elections. Indications are that a number of musicians who campaigned for the NPP in 2008 are beginning to show clear signs that they may look elsewhere and the latest to give this signal is music legend Daddy Lumba, known in private life as Charles Kojo Fosu. Lumba is reported by Adom News to have expressed his readiness to write and sing a campaign song for the NDC presidential candidate, President John Atta Mills, for the 2012 election campaign season. In 2008, Lumba sang a campaign song for the NPP�s candidate, Nana Akufo Addo and the song, �Yeko Ye Nim (We are moving forward)� became an instant hit that got even Akufo Addo�s political rivals dancing and singing along. The song was used as the official campaign song for the NPP. News-One has gathered that the party has plans of getting Lumba into the studios to do a re-mix version for 2012. It has however become uncertain whether the highlife legend would go with the NPP this time round as his interview with Adom suggested that he saw himself as a professional musician interested in the commercial aspect of his music rather than politics. Lumba explained that as a musician, he saw nothing wrong with entering into a purely business contract with a political party to sing for its candidate or the party as a whole. The musician revealed that though he was a song writer and a good one for that matter, �Ye Ko Ye nim� was actually written by the NPP and he only had to sing the song�s lyrics in the studio. Lumba said he sang that song purely for money and nothing else. He said election years had become money-making seasons for musicians and so he would not hesitate to take advantage of the 2012 election season to make some money from the NPP, the NDC or both, depending on the terms and arrangements with the parties. Lumba recalled that in 2008, the NDC also used his song �Aye Huhuuhu� in its campaign though that there was no official agreement on it. A-Plus Hiplife musician and political satirist, A-Plus, also expressed similar sentiments in an interview with News-One when he complained that the NPP did not appreciate the musicians that sang for Nana Akufo-Addo�s 2008 campaign. �Mind you, several top persons in the NPP, including Felix Owusu Agyepong are on record to have blamed we the musicians for their party�s loss in 2008. What they forget is that we campaigned for Nana Addo as a candidate and not the NPP as a party. Our aim was to present Nana Ado as someone who is liked by Ghanaians and after the first round, he was leading although several of his party�s MPs had lost their seats. �After that campaign, the type of things we heard were very disheartening and it is sad that the party has not come out to disassociate itself from such comments. It makes it seem as if it is a position held by the NPP and not just some top individuals in the party. I wonder if they would have the courage to ask musicians to campaign for them this time round.� Lyrics News-One�s checks showed that the NPP actually wrote the lyrics of several of the 2008 campaign songs and only contracted the musicians to do the singing and stage appearances. The then NPP National Organiser, Lord Commey and the party�s National Treasurer, Esther Ofori, are said to have been in charge of writing the lyrics of most of the songs, including the ones sang by ace musician Kwabena-Kwabena, and the party�s official anthem.