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Opinions of Monday, 9 February 2009

Columnist: Amankwah, Nana Kofi

The Latest NPP Inside Edition

Most supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are already aware of the unfairness practiced among some of their party executives towards prominent individuals who have a bright future to move their party forward. They are saying they have seen it before and this time they are willing to do something about it because they believe it was the appropriate thing to do. They said over one week and half ago that now some members within the party have started to accuse Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen that of making phone calls to some members and have threatened to divide the party if that continues. They believe these seamier tactics come from Akufo Addo’s inner circle. They said these accusations are total political nonsense, because Alan was not even in the country. Why are all these silly things still going on? We all know politics is a tough business that frequently requires tough talk and a lot of bluster to achieve one’s goal. This time they said they are fed up and ready to fight back; they will never allow what happened at the University of Ghana in 2007 to occur. Furthermore, they believe the party needs change; therefore Prof Mike Oquaye and Yaw Osafo-Maafo cannot speak for the party to retain Akufo Addo as NPP presidential candidate for 2012. The NPP party does not belong to them as their exclusive organization. Plain and simple. They believe their fight will be worth fighting for the party and all NPP members in urban areas as well as obscure places across the country.

National Executives must be fired

Regardless of ideologies or political views no one should ignore the disastrous performance by the national executive of the NPP, particularly the way they handle the 2008 general elections that led their party lose to the opposition NDC. They came to office in 2005 while their party was holding on to power; after the party had been in opposition for the last thirty years. That is a long time in the history of our Ghanaian political institutions. Akufo Addo thinks using the media blitz was good idea to win sympathy- in theory. The NPP national executive board that he helped install in office in 2005 see themselves not as moral, honest characters who ideologically or idealistically try to do what is right for their party. Rather they are strictly out for their self –aggrandizing interests. These aforementioned national executives have operated under the cloud of scandals starting from the day of their nomination with their secret dubious political motives orchestrated by Dan Kwaku Botwe, Akufo Addo Yaw Osafo Maafo and Kennedy Kwabena Agyepong.

The motives that they helped create were the two factions that brought the party down in the 2008 general elections. They don’t have respect for the authorities and founding leaders many of whom were the soul financial powers who took the party from the opposition to office. The foot soldiers that were the heart and sole of their party’s grass roots campaign were treated as strangers within their own party. As a result of that, they are now urging all the NPP members who are delegates to vote this 2005 elected national executive board out of office before the May, 2009 national conference. These executive members have displayed a significant ethical lapse for their egocentric greed when they were conducting the parliamentary primaries nomination across the country. The only way these individuals can come back to lead this institution is to plead insanity for their criminal acts, again no jury or judge would find them not guilt. They are done! They need to leave now for the party to bring in a better executive board and start building.

From: Nana Kofi Amankwah (New York)