By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
Nov. 8, 2015
E-mail: [email protected]
When Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen officially parted ways with the New Patriotic Party in the late summer of 2008 – the man has since vehemently denied this, even in the face of his readily accessible resignation letter to the extant National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party – it was in prophetic keeping with Mr. B. J. daRocha’s quite reflective conclusions that other than using the NPP as a ladder to actualize his vaulting presidential ambitions, Mr. Kyerematen did not seem to have any practical use for the then-governing party. Seven years later, not very much has changed, his affirmations to the contrary notwithstanding. And so what Mr. Ben Ephson, the editor-publisher of the Daily Dispatch newspaper, reportedly told Kasapa-Fm’s Mr. Fiifi Banson on Wednesday, Nov. 4, 2015, was absolutely nothing new.
In essence, the pro-National Democratic Congress pollster “revealed” that the Kufuor faction of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) could effectively sabotage the chances of the 2016 presidential candidate at regaining the Flagstaff House, both for Nana Akufo-Addo, himself, and for the NPP for the third time (See “Ephson: Nana Could Suffer Sabotage from Kufuor Camp” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 11/5/15). Well, as already noted above, we all witnessed quite a bit of this in the lead-up to the 2008 general election, when then-lame-duck President John Agyekum-Kufuor staunchly backed Mr. Kyerematen (aka Alan Cash) to “diplomatically” collaborate with then-Candidate John Evans Atta-Mills of the National Democratic Congress, when it became clear that Mr. Kufuor would not have his nepotistic wish from party delegates. Some three or four years later, Mr. Kyerematen would, again, be accused by some party big-wigs of currying favors with President John Dramani Mahama, the man who succeeded the country’s first president to die in office. To his credit, though, Mr. Kyerematen presently claims to be staunchly in support of Nana Akufo-Addo’s third shot at the presidency.
But what is even more intriguing is the fact that in recent weeks, Dr. Charles Wereko-Brobby (aka Tarzan / Dr. McNasty) has also publicly revealed that he has always been a leftist ideologue with leanings towards both the rump-Convention People’s Party (r-CPP) and the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), but that it was his late politician uncle, Mr. Victor Owusu, who had convinced Dr. Wereko-Brobby to truck with the operatives of the New Patriotic Party, against his better judgment, and even run for parliament. Well, as of this writing, I had not checked to find out precisely what became of Tarzan’s parliamentary ambitions. Not that it would matter anyhow. But what this revelation has convinced me about is the fact that the members of the Kufuor-Kyerematen faction within the New Patriotic Party have never really been committed to the interests and collective good of the party, save how to expediently and opportunistically use the NPP to further their own private and personal ambitions, as well as those of their equally opportunistic hangers-on and associates.
Else, Ghanaians would have witnessed the positive influence of President Kufuor on the party since the 2008 constitutionally stipulated expiration of his tenure. And then also even more significantly, in the wake of the all-too-legitimate, appropriate and unanimous decision by the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NPP to indefinitely suspend Mr. Paul Afoko, the National Chairman of the party, for legion breaches of the New Patriotic Party’s Constitution, Mr. Frank Agyekum, the man who has been serving as the official spokesman of Mr. Kufuor, since the latter’s retirement, wrote and published an anti-Akufo-Addo tirade captioned “NPP Hits the Self-Destruct Button.”
What is curious and worth asking here is the following: Where were all these evidently staunch supporters of Mr. Afoko, when the latter was busy and frenetically fanning the flames of violence, together with his right-hand man and former Kufuor spokesman Mr. Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, the party’s General-Secretary, that culminated in the brutal acid-dousing assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama, the former Upper-East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party just this past May? Chairman Afoko has also reportedly carried out a slew of unilateral decisions in flagrant violation of the party’s Constitution, in a prejudicial bid to radically restructuring the administrative machinery of the NPP to suit the especial purposes, it clearly appears, of his paymasters and sponsors.
Well, this may not come as either good or welcome news, but it well appears that Mr. Agyekum, the Kufuor spokesman, was smack-dab on the money when he hinted at the fact that it may be temporally ripe for the Akufo-Addo and Kufuor-Kyerematen factions of the party to seriously consider parting ways, as both Messrs. Frank Agyekum and his boss are convinced that this is the best way to bring about peace and harmony in the main opposition front of the country’s political and cultural landscape.