Apraku is not a “traitor” – Isaac Osei

Calling Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku a traitor in the main opposition New Patriotic Party is disingenuous, fellow former Presidential Aspirant Isaac Osei has told Radio XYZ.

“I’ll never call Apraku a traitor”, the Subin MP said on the XYZ Breakfast Show Monday.

A founder-member of the Party, Dr Kwame Amoako-Tuffuor, was the first to describe Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku as a traitor when he spoke to XYZ Breakfast Show host Moro Awudu on December 9, 2013.

He said he found it puzzling that the 2008 Campaign Manager of the party’s two-time presidential Candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, will now be running down his former boss just to propel his own selfish presidential ambitions.

“…Anybody who sounds like he’s betraying a boss without any real good reason, but just destructive, sounds like Judas Iscariot to Jesus”, he insisted.

Why Apraku was labeled a traitor

Dr Apraku told NPP supporters at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), in the preceding weekend, at the inauguration of TESCONA, an NPP group made up of past graduates of tertiary schools, that: “…In an election year for our presidential candidate, let me say we should select the best possible person for our party. The person who will embody the aspirations; the values of the rest of the population. Somebody Ghanaians can see through and say ‘I want my son to be this person’”.

The former Offinso North MP said it was important the party allowed free internal contests as far as the election of executives and a flagbearer for the 2016 elections were concerned.

“Let everybody be free to compete in this election without regard to ‘I belong to this, I belong to that’”.

According to him, “everybody should be selected on the basis of their competence, their loyalty, effectiveness and dedication to work” adding that: “In the final analysis, it’s not who you belong to that matters, it’s what you can achieve for this party”.

Dr Amoako-Tuffuor however said Dr Apraku’s behaviour smacked of back stabbing.

“I don’t want to get on the hit yet, but if somebody wants to make my day, I’ll come through. This kind of business of running somebody down and then saying ‘I love the party’ and tomorrow that somebody who has been run down becomes the leader and then we struggle to do a different PR, and all that, that shows that there are some people who are not really good party members”.

He also questioned the locus of Dr Apraku within the NPP, for him to be urging that the party’s two-time presidential candidate be changed.

“…Who is Dr Konadu Apraku to talk for Ghanaians who have decided they want Akufo-Addo the third time?”

Isaac Osei defends Apraku’s NPP pedigree

Isaac Osei, who was one of the five flagbearer Aspirants who stood in the party’s 2010 presidential primaries, and contemplating standing again, however, defended Dr Apraku’s pedigree as a true NPP member when he appeared as a studio guest on the XYZ Breakfast Show.

“…This is a man who has served his party as MP and as Minister. If he has a different opinion as to how we should move forward as a political party, I think he is entitled to his opinion. I may not agree with him, but I will certainly not attack Apraku in that way”, he said.

According to the former Cocobod Chief Executive Officer, NPP members must be tolerant of dissenting views in the party and desist from attacking people they disagree with.

“Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe, Kwame Pianim, Dr Charles Wereko-Brobbey, all of them have different views. There’s nothing wrong about having different views about how things should run in the party and people must also say their views instead of attacking the persons of these people”.

The former Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland in the Kufuor Administration said: “…Recently Alan kyeremanten called for unity in the party, I think that is what any true son of the party should [do]…there’s absolutely no reason why we should insult people; there’s absolutely no reason why we should attack them personally. You may attack their ideas, you may attack the programmes that they may have, but to attack them and call them turncoats and all that, I don’t accept that. This is wrong”.