Non-Akans feel like outcasts in NPP – Ayikoi Otoo

Former Attorney General, Nii Ayikoi Otoo says non-Akan members of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) feel ostracised and sidelined in the party.

He says the party’s non-Akan constituency feel they “don’t belong” in the NPP and has therefore advised the party to shed off the widely held perception that it is a party for those belonging to the Akan tribe.

Ayikoi Otoo says the party must strategise and play its card properly ahead of the 2016 elections so it fritters off the Akan perception.

He said while the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) has had Presidential Candidates from the Volta Region (Jerry Rawlings), Central Region (Prof. John Mills) and the Northern Region (John Mahama), the NPP on the other hand has only been fielding Akan candidates since the beginning of the fourth republic.

He wondered why only Akan Presidential Candidates (Prof. Albert Adu Boahen, John Agyekum Kufuor and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo) have led the party to national elections since 1992.

The late Adu-Boahen was a native of Oseim (Akyem) in the Eastern region with ancestral roots from Asante-Juaben in the Ashanti region.

Former President John Kufuor is from the Ashanti region and Akufo-Addo is an Akyem.

Ayikoi Otoo, a native Ga, who is vying to be Chairman of the NPP, told Accra-based Asempa FM that the Akyem-Ashanti stronghold on the party bodes ill for its future prospects.