NPP oligarchy-prone – Analyst

Ghana’s biggest opposition party – New Patriotic Party (NPP) – is highly likely to run an oligarchic state should flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo win the 2016 presidential elections.

That is the prognosis of Dr Samuel Adu Gyamfi of the history and political science department of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), as far as the current infighting within the party is concerned.

The political science lecturer told Ekow Mensah-Shalders (#EMS) on Class91.3fm’s Executive Breakfast Show (#EBS) on Thursday December 17, in an interview that the harshness with which the leadership of the NPP silences internal dissension is a harbinger of his forecast.

So far, three national executives of the party: Chairman Paul Afoko, Second Vice-Chairman Sammy Crabbe and General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong, have been suspended indefinitely for allegedly breaching various provisions of the NPP’s constitution. The three – alleged to be loyalists of former President John Kufuor – and, as a result, pigeon-holed in the Kufuor/Alan Kyeremanten faction, were also suspected to be working against the interest of Mr Akufo-Addo’s third time presidential bid.

Divisions in the party have widened as a result of the suspensions, which supporters of the three politicians view as unjustified hounding.

Speaking about the development vis-à-vis media speculations about those whom Mr Akufo-Addo plans selecting to form his campaign team for next year’s November general elections, Dr Adu Gyamfi said: “So far as the NPP campaign is concerned, there cannot be any dissenting view in the general political structure of the NPP. They’ve said it, I mean, I think it’s a democratic dictatorship, that’s what they are running…you can’t have a dissenting view, you can’t have a dissenting opinion, if you dare have one, you are kicked out, it’s as simple as that.”

He said the seeming intolerance to dissenting views underscore his long-held opinion that “…the NPP has the tendency or the proclivity to create an oligarchic state,” to an extent that “the few will rule and the few will be those who have some traditions with the kingmakers and the kingmakers are the Asantes and Akyems, and then within these kingmakers, the one who is in charge decides to rally his men around and the other side is pushed aside and we’ve seen that at least within this dispensation. It’s quite clear that there’s no dissenting view and you cannot have one. If you have a dissenting view, bury it.”