Nana: 'I can work with everyone in NPP'

Flagbearer of Ghana’s biggest opposition party Nana Akufo-Addo has refuted claims that he has said he cannot work with certain people in the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and as a result, having those people pushed out of the party.

The three-time flagbearer told an Extraordinary National Delegates’ Conference in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region on Saturday, December 19, 2015, that he has no qualms at all working with people who have the party’s best interest at heart.

“I can work with everybody who shares this goal,” the former Attorney General told the gathering at the Sunyani Coronation Park.

Several bouts of internal strife in the NPP have led to the indefinite suspension of three national executives who have been accused of breaching various provisions of the party’s constitution.

The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) handed down the punishment to Chairman Paul Afoko, second Vice-Chair Sammy Crabbe, and General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong for allegedly acting in ways that put the party at a disadvantage.

Issues surrounding Mr Afoko’s leadership and suspension led to the death of two party members: Upper East regional Chairman Adam Mahama and activist Saddiq Abubakar in Asawase, Ashanti region. There were numerous clashes at the party’s Asylum Down headquarters in Accra over several thorny issues that came up as a result of the leadership of Mr Afoko and the two others. Their suspension also sparked similar rumpus.

Mr Akufo-Addo said at the Conference that: “I’m saddened that the party has had to resort to suspensions…nobody including myself is above the party or its laws.”

He admitted that “this year has been a tumultuous one …we’ve made the front pages for all the wrong reasons,” as well as spent most of their time fighting one another, adding that the suspensions have been a “traumatic experience for me personally.”