Afoko disrespected Akufo-Addo, NPP elders - C.K. Tedam
The Chairman of the Council of Elders of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr C.K. Tedam, has said the suspended National Chairman of the party, Mr Paul Afoko, dug his own grave by serially disrespecting and snubbing not just the flag bearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, but also the party’s elders.
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Mr Afoko, according to Mr Tedam, exhibited gross disrespect to the elders and the flag bearer by storming out of many meetings and also refusing to appear before the elders, despite several invitations.
Speaking to journalists yesterday, Mr Tedam said: “…The party was simply in his pocket…”
Mr Afoko, the NPP’s first-ever elected northern Chairman, was, by a unanimous decision of the party’s National Executive Council (NEC), suspended indefinitely last Friday per the recommendations of the Disciplinary Committee (DC) of the party.
He has been accused of an array of instances of alleged misconduct.
Mr Afoko, nonetheless, insists he remains chairman and has challenged the legality of his suspension.
Meanwhile, although Afoko insists he remains Chairman, Nana Akufo-Addo has asked party members to respect the NEC’s decision.
“…Having observed the way things were going, we were going into disaster and so we petitioned the Disciplinary Committee…which in turn invited Afoko, just as the Council of Elders invited him, and he refused,” Mr Tedam told journalists.
“I went to talk to him myself but he refused to come. We wrote to him officially so that he would reply officially because our idea was to bring peace and harmony to the party. As fathers and mothers of the party, it was not our intention to impeach him because we thought that would take time and it would disorganise the party a little. So we asked him to come and explain why he was not cooperating,” he added.
According to him, ever since Mr Afoko was elected chairman about a year ago, he (Afoko) had not been going to the party’s office.
“He said he was afraid of his own shadow. We have done everything possible and the DC also did all that it could, with our support, to bring him for discussions but he himself did not cooperate at all,” Mr Tedam noted.
According to him, Mr Afoko’s persistent snubbing of the elders left them with no option but to resort to the party’s structures in dealing with the situation.
“…We believed that the only way we could handle the matter was to let the DC take it upon itself because he couldn’t be judged in his own case. We only asked that he be disciplined and asked to wait until things were put in shape. We planned to bring peace, but Chairman Afoko would not just cooperate,” he added.