NPP Flagbearer race: Kennedy Agyapong goes tribal; incites Central, Western Regions against the North

New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer aspirant Kennedy Ohene Agyapong has expressed dissatisfaction with the occupation of key political positions by people from northern Ghana in the NPP administration.

He alleged that people from the Western and Central only get “used and dumped” and never enjoy the spoils of power.

Speaking on a campaign tour in the Western Region, Mr. Agyapong stressed that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) does not belong to only northerners, adding that if northerners engage in tribalistic campaigns, he will do the same.

“Chooboi! Listen to me attentively. They say you should vote for whom? We are in Western Region, the Vice President is from the North, the Defence Minister is from the North, Interior Minister from the North, the Sports Minister from the North, Tourism Minister from the North, Women Ministry from the North. Why? Are they the only voters in the country?

Because they are satisfied they want you to go and vote for somebody. If they go tribal we will also go tribal. The party is not only for them. Every day they use Central and Western Regions and after that dump us. Is that not nonsense?… We are humans and not animals,” he said.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia is the only person from Northern Ghana in the New Patriotic Party NPP flagbearership contest. His pronouncements have been deemed to be against the candidature of Dr Bawumia who is seen as the frontrunner in the contest so far.

Meanwhile, the reference to the north has been misconstrued to mean a region when in fact there are five regions that make up the area.

In 2018 Reverend Eastwood Anaba, founder of Eastwood Anaba Ministries described the classification of the Northern, Upper East, North East, Savannah and Upper West regions as one as a lazy way of doing things indicating that five regions are distinct in nature and have different development needs.

He disclosed that what may be a priority to the other may not and therefore wants an end to the practice of stakeholders and policymakers referring to them as ‘ five regions of the north or five northern regions.

“The three regions have different potentials and characteristics which must be identified and dealt with separately with the best approach to enhance their development”, he advised.

Reverend Anaba observed that this practice is stifling the development of these regions and the earlier the trend is halted the better for the development needs of those areas calling on journalists who hail from these regions to help reverse this trend.

Speaking at the 2nd media festival organized by The Press Foundation, TPF in Bolgatanga he said:” I believe what our journalists can do to help us is to help us identify, specify and occupy the Upper East region, the Upper West region, North East Region, Savannah Region and the Northern region. Journalists should champion the cause of identifying these regions as separate regions, requiring different developmental approaches. The second thing we need to be able to develop is what I would call defiance. Defiance is a major step in development.

We have a gravitational force like depending on others to develop us. We can’t sit in the Upper East region and say we need some of the oil money. What about the granite money? If you go to Bongo, where Honourable Manasseh comes from, children climb these beautiful rocks and use them for open defecation. We defecate on our rocks and we are [asking] God for somebody’s oil to come to us. We should be aggressive, passionate and angry enough to develop this place,” Rev. Anaba told the gathering.