Akufo-Addo cause of NPP’s problem — Omane Boamah
A member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Gabby Otchere-Darko, has said the party’s flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is not to blame for the current divisions in the party.
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The founder of the Danquah Institute, a think tank, said: “Akufo-Addo doesn’t [decide] who becomes chairman of the party. He cannot hire and fire like the president does, if surrounded by his incompetent ministers,” he argued.
Mr Otchere-Darko was contributing to discussions on Joy FM’s special end-of-year edition of its Current Affairs programme, Newsfile, on Saturday, in which the Communication Minister, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, suggested that the inept leadership of flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo was to blame for the rumpus in Ghana’s biggest opposition party – the NPP.
“The NPP must understand that what they are dealing with has to do with two things. Number One – and the most important one – has to do with poor leadership and lack of organisational skills.
“The second one has to do with the corruption that is deep-seated in there, which they have not been able to manage. When I talk about poor leadership, I meanthe NPP has been here before, but appropriate and effective leadership dealt with it in a way that even saw the NPP becoming even much stronger.
Argument untenable
But Mr Otchere Darko pointed out that the argument was untenable.
“It appears that their concern is about Akufo-Addo; secondly, this is not the first time Akufo-Addo has become a flagbearer. He lost to Kufuor in 1998 and we did not see this kind of problem,” he asserted.
“The only things that have changed are those who are chairmen, general secretary, national organiser, but the flagbearer remains the same. So, if that same flagbearer was there in 2008 and 2012 and we had no difficulties, I don’t think it is fair to your common sense to see him as the problem.”
But Omane Boamah insisted that “the NPP has been here before, but quality leadership, better organisational skills on the part of President John Agyekum Kufuor, then candidate John Agyekum Kufuor, made sure they didn’t descend into the kind of decay, putrefaction that they find themselves in,” Dr Omane Boamah said.
Intense factionalism
The NPP has been grappling with intense factionalism following the indefinite suspension of the National Chairman, Paul Afoko, the General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong and the Second Vice-Chairman, Sammy Crabbe.
The three, who are thought to belong to the Kufuor/Alan faction, were suspected to be working against the interests of the NPP and Mr Akufo-Addo.