Akufo-Addo's successor will suffer restoring nobility in NPP – Manasseh Azure Awuni

Celebrated journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni has said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) will find it very difficult restoring the party to nobility after the tenure of President Nana Akufo-Addo.

According to him, the democratic party which was founded on solid democratic foundations has become weaker simply because the leadership under the president feels very strong and more powerful.

In a post on his Facebook timeline, the journalist wrote: “I knew how the NPP was when it was led by Kufuor and I know how the NPP is under your leadership. The difference is clearer than night and day. In speaking up in the past, one only had to check one’s “factometre”. Today, the daredevils who speak up have to constantly check their “fearometre”.

“As to why independent CSOs and institutions are silent on injustice against you as your party, I have this simple reason for you. Nana Yenkamasem and Nana Kabimame cannot rule from the same palace.”

Yenkamasaem is Akan which suggests the current administration has silenced CSOs on the Agyapa scandal. Kabimame is also Akan meaning speak on my behalf.

Manasseh’s comments come after the President expressed his disappointment to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference over their silence on what he considers to be an ethnocentric comment by an NDC Member of Parliament which was amplified by John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the opposition party.

The bishops called on him at the Jubilee House on Friday, September 4, 2020.

The president said: “Sometimes, one would hope when things come out, people will comment on them. The comment made by my opponent: ‘Akyem Sakawa’ people, I have not heard any public figure in this country or anybody comment on it.

He continued: “If I was to get up to make a comment about Northerners or Gonjas, you can imagine the uproar that will be in the country.”

But Manasseh questioned: “Your teeming supporters and praise singers were drooling all over social media because your opponent had thoughtlessly presented them with juicy political fodder and they would chew and ruminate for years to come. Was that not enough?”

He added: “When I heard you, I laughed heartily. Last week, I prophesied that you and your party would one day need the “dumb” and “noise-making” civil society organizations and independent voices to speak for you so you should stop discrediting them and calling them “all-knowing neutrals”. My prophecy was that you would need them in opposition, but you’ve shown that you need them now….It has something to do with your leadership. I’m not very old but my reading of politics in the Fourth Republic suggests that these independent voices, journalists and CSOs have a soft spot for the NPP as against the NDC, which was born from a repressive military regime."

Read below his full post.