Aliu's Men Fight Back

Over "Elect Another Akan When You Have A Sitting Northern Veep" statement
Dr. Amoako Tuffour, Chief Advisor and member of the Vice President’s campaign team, has lashed back at critics who have berated him over his recent comments at the Vice President’s campaign launch at Mankessim, insisting that critics of his views are people who are afraid to confront the truth.

According to him, though what he said may be unpalatable to some people, it was truth that needed to be told.

He also took on the General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and all those who have chastised him for allegedly inciting ethnic sentiments to stop being hypocritical, discriminatory and face what he termed the ‘politics of honesty, truth and reality’.

Another member of the Veep’s team, Mr Yaw Buabeng Asamoah, also criticized what he called the hypocritical evaluation of what Amoako Tuffour said and asked why the issue had been turned into a debate because it was said by someone belonging to Aliu’s camp.

Both men spoke Friday on Citi 97.3 FM during the station’s mid-day news. Amoako Tuffour said he was unfazed by the criticisms leveled at him, suggesting that he cannot be accused of raising ethnic sentiments against Akans when he was an Asante himself.

Dr Amoako Tuffour did not take kindly to information by CITI FM that the General Secretary of the NPP had made a statement suggesting that the Veep’s camp should denounce him. He insisted that it was unfortunate and sad that the General Secretary joined the fray of public condemnation and description of the statements he made as tribalistic, when the General Secretary was fully aware that he was not the first person to broach the issue.

Amoako Tuffour, who said Nana Ohene Ntow, the General Secretary, had worked for him in the past, expressed sadness about the General Secretary’s supposed reaction to the tribal remarks, noting that almost all the other NPP presidential aspirants are also guilty of the very offence he is being chastised for, and wondered why he has been singled out for such widespread condemnation.

“It makes me very sad for him (General Secretary) to take that kind of stand when indeed almost all the key players have spoken on ethnic lines publicly. Some say they have a child in Ashanti, courting Ashanti following.

“Some have said they are Fante and Ashanti; their wife is Akyem and Kwahu. He knows it. He’s heard it. If he is doing his work right, he should have known and heard,” noted the Veep’s loyalist.

Amoako Tuffour asked his critics to address the issues he raised and stop berating him for having the courage to raise them.

He said as a founding member and National Council member of the NPP, his General Secretary should have at least given him that recognition and sought his opinion on the issue rather than condemn him publicly.

“He hasn’t asked me of my opinion. He hasn’t discussed anything with me. …he has worked for me before! He has worked for me before! … That issue I was talking about that you concoct to make it sound like racist or tribal or ethnic whatever, all major aspirants are guilty of that. These are issues which we all must embrace and talk intelligently about…” he said.

Amoako Tuffour asked those criticizing him to first deal with all the other aspirants, who according to him, have made similar and even worse remarks in the course of their campaigns before he joined the fray.

“If you want to remove anybody, start with those who made these statements. I don’t like the hypocrisy that we are displaying as if people don’t see things on tribal lines”, he said. He accused his critics of not being honest with themselves, noting that they are refusing to accept the truth and the reality because they are being dishonest.

“I love my party. I said what I said and it is in good faith. And I think people are dishonest; that is why they don’t want to discuss it properly. I want people to sit up, think about it carefully, whether we are honest in criticizing it”.

Amoako Tuffour said tribalism, ethnicity and issues on racism are global phenomena and that it is only in Ghana that people try to create the impression that they do not exist.

“Racism, tribalism, ethnicity exists everywhere in this world. In England, it’s Englishman versus Welsh; Englishman versus Scotsman; Englishman versus Irishman. In Ghana, as soon as you talk about it, then people turn around and talk deep into it with resentment”.

On his part, the Special Assistant to the Vice President, Yaw Buabeng Asamoah, who spoke to CITI FM before Amoako Tuffour came on line, said he was absolutely unaware of any directive from the NPP General Secretary to the effect that Alhaji Aliu Mahama’s campaign team should denounce the remarks made by its Chief Advisor at Mankessim.

He, however, emphasized that Amoako Tuffour remains an integral part of the campaign team and that there was absolutely no intention or move by the Veep’s campaign team to disassociate themselves from him.

Asamoah described various criticisms about Amoako Tuffour’s remarks as emotive and wondered why people were avoiding looking at the issues dispassionately and only being squeamish about it.

He said there was nothing wrong with what Amoako Tuffour said, noting that it is an issue that all and sundry, including think-tanks and academics in the country, can join in discussing dispassionately for the good of the nation’s politics.

The controversy over Amoako Tuffour statement arose following this paper’s report of his caution to the ruling NPP to choose between electing the Vice President as its flagbearer and win the 2008 elections, or elect another Akan candidate after President Kufuor and be sent into opposition by the NDC.

According to him, if the party fails to be guided by history and goes ahead to present an Akan presidential candidate in the 2008 elections while it has a northerner in the person of the sitting Vice President, the NDC will beat the NPP by reinforcing the perception that the NPP is an ‘akanistic’ party.

In his view, the NPP can only win the 2008 general elections only if it presents Alhaji Aliu Mahama, whom he described as the “most important candidate of all our history” and the sole Northerner among the 18 presidential hopefuls of the party as its candidate in the 2008 elections.

He pointed out that people will definitely ask questions and probably fault the NPP if it rejects Alhaji Aliu Mahama, the only northerner among the lot, saying it will then substantiate the NDC’s claims that the NPP is an Akan party and that all other non-Akan members are disregarded in the party.

He said the NPP should be mindful of the potential propaganda the NDC is likely to use against them, pointing out that the only way the NPP can refute this allegation was to elect Alhaji Aliu Mahama as its flagberaer.

He claimed that out of the 18 aspirants, 14 are Akans and that the Vice President is the only northerner, adding that he is the only candidate capable of winning the floating voters in the country for the NPP.