By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Oct. 28, 2015
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

To hear the venerable Chairman of the New Patriotic Party’s Council-of-Elders tell it, Mr. Paul Afoko was running Ghana’s largest political party like his personal property, in pretty much the same way that Dr. J. B. Danquah virulently accused Mr. Kwame Nkrumah of doing. And so one wonders why Mr. Afoko has not applied for membership in either the rump-Convention People’s Party (r-CPP) or the ruling so-called National Democratic Congress (NDC). I mean these are the most widely known parties for bullies and dictators. We must also quickly point out that this is an authoritative character testimony that can only be ignored at a great risk to both the fortunes of Messrs. Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Mahamudu Bawumia and those of the New Patriotic Party at large.

Then also must be promptly pointed out the fact that elections are not etched in stone, which is why most modern political parties have constitutional amendments dealing with issues of discipline, in particular the sanctioning of party executives who unwisely let raw power and influence get to their heads. Mr. Tedam, who is also the party’s Election Committee chairman, says that he witnessed several embarrassing moments at party meetings where Mr. Afoko used his gavel to rudely and summarily preempt cordial and democratic discussions, if the Bolgatanga native did not like what he was hearing (See “NPP was in Afoko’s Pocket; Leading us into Disaster – C K Tedam” MyJoyOnline.com 10/26/15).

Under such unilateral and dictatorial circumstances, there was absolutely no way to constructively get pressing party business done timeously. It also becomes quite understandable that Chairman Afoko and his lock-step right-hand man, to wit, General-Secretary Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, should be widely accused of working insidiously and deviously to ensure an easy second presidential term for Mr. John Dramani Mahama. If, as Mr. Tedam credibly maintains, having been an eyewitness on more than several occasions, the suspended party National Chairman demonstrated absolutely no respect for the party’s 2016 presidential candidate, then one has to unreservedly agree with the Council-of-Elders chairman that, indeed, Chairman Afoko was hell-bent on running the party into a ravine.

Naturally, it also becomes quite understandable that Nana Akufo-Addo would not hesitate to endorse the landmark decision of the NPP’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to show Mr. Afoko the exit door out of the party’s Asylum Down headquarters. The question, therefore, of whether Nana Akufo-Addo was behind the indefinite suspension of Chairman Afoko does not either warrant or merit serious debate. And this is ironic, because those calling for the reinstatement of the man who unsuccessfully attempted to cop an alibi for his younger brother, Gregory Afoko, in connection with the brutal acid-dousing assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama, the former Upper-East regional chairman of the New Patriotic Party, may need to be promptly schooled in what constitutes the salient tenets and principles of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo Tradition.

It is also quite amusing that the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) seem to be far more aggrieved than the prominent members of the very party whose National Executive Committee, as well as its Disciplinary Committee, reportedly, engineered the auspicious ouster of Mr. Afoko. And so the man ought to have been doing something bizarrely remarkable to further the political fortunes of the Mahama government. It is strikingly akin to the proverbial sympathizer who out-mourns the bereaved. The party’s Intelligence Committee, if any such organ exists, ought to investigate the possibility of any clandestine horse-trading that might have transpired between the Afoko forces and the latter’s counterparts from among the top-echelons of the National Democratic Congress.

It is also quite amusing to hear the Idiot-of-Irmo, South Carolina, and his bosom buddy, Dr. McNasty, claim that the condign indefinite suspension of their anti-Akufo-Addo point-man at party headquarters, is tantamount to “snatching defeat out of the jowls of victory.” Other than the pathological Idiot-of-Irmo, about the only people who believe that, indeed, Mr. Afoko was Nana Akufo-Addo’s mascot are the notorious so-called Agenda 2020 factionalists. And their concept of victory, of course, is systematically ensuring that the Akufo-Addo/ Bawumia Dream Team becomes a rotten nightmare.

Refreshingly, though, Mr. Tedam has observed that the party is open to finding the legitimately ousted Mr. Afoko a role to play that would help secure NPP “victory in the next elections, provided” the recently decommissioned party chief is ready and willing to play by the laid-down rules of political engagement. Let’s wait and see just what role this could or might be.