Exactly a week to the final determination of the landmark election petition by Justices of the Supreme Court, reality has dawned on some leading functionaries of the New Patriotic Party that the party is likely to suffer another excruciating defeat and accordingly, have energetically started jostling to take control over it.
Though the operatives of the Akan dominated party have for the past denied any power play between the ever determined Ashanti faction and the incumbent leaders, mainly from the Akyem stock, events over the week confirms how the battle for the soul of the party has reared its ugly head.
These NPP functionaries aiming to dislodge the current leaders, mainly from the Ashanti and Northern cabal, who hitherto were hardly heard in the media commenting on happenings in the party since it went to court, have taken advantage of the recent mortification of the party’s General Secretary, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, and party Communicator, Hopeson Adorye, by Justices of the Supreme Court to resuscitate and re-polish their political lives in the public arena.
Having faith, since the closing of addresses and clarifications by Counsels of both petitioners and respondents at the Supreme Court hearing the election petition, the members of the Ashanti set and the newly opened Northern front have realized that, it is all over for the party.
The two groups have come to a well-founded conclusion that the Akyem elements, led by Nana Akufo-Addo, improperly managed the party and as such have outlived their significance, hence ought to be nippily ousted and consigned to the backstage.
In a bid to flinch a masterful hatched plan, kingpins of these two groups led by former President Kufuor and ably supported by Mr. Paul Afoko, a close aide to the twice defeated flag bearer aspirant of the NPP, Mr. Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, are using the Sir John/Hopeson Adorye infamous contempt farce to rake-in and rekindle the factions’ bid to take over the party from Nana Akufo-Addo and his henchmen.
Operatives of the Ashanti and Northern cabal, who were silently trotting on the touchlines awaiting an opportunity to nail kingpins of the Akyem camp, but were getting none, suddenly found an avenue was created for them when Nana Akufo-Addo’s Sir John and Hopeson Adorye were caught in the web of the law of criminal contempt.
In a politically adroit modus, both former President Kufuor, who was never heard condemning Sir John ever since he started his serial and awful attacks on political opponents including the late President Mills, and now President, John Mahama; and Mr. Paul Afoko, who had also gone on political hibernation since he was reportedly manhandled by an aficionado of Akufo-Addo for allegedly bribing delegates at the 2007 congress of the party, were, all of a sudden, and simultaneously heard in the media shrewdly chastising the disgraced foul mouth Akufo-Addo’s apostle.
What was so interestingly, but at the same time not strange was that, on the same day whiles Mr. Afoko, an NPP Chairmanship slot hopeful was on pro-government Radio Gold, energetically cutting to size Sir John and Adorye, the chief “executioner” of the Ashanti set, Mr. Kufuor, on the other hand, was also on pro-opposition Multi TV/Adom TV’s current affairs program, Badwan, slashing the NPP foul mouth duo’s conduct to pieces, an indication that the public act was cleverly planned to achieve maximum and desired result.
This move by the two leaders of the Ashanti and Northern sets created a heated consternation, which shook the foundation of the elephant party and has led to media battle between the contending tribal groups in the NPP.
In a move to rebut President Kufuor when he told host of ‘Badwan’ that the National Executive Committee of the party will meet within the week to consider either to suspend the disgraced General Secretary or otherwise, Mr. Fred Oware, second vice Chairman of the party and also a close ally of Nana Akuo-Addo, a day after Mr. Kufuor’s interview told the same state media that, Sir John’s issues was not on the agenda of the NEC meeting, but may discuss it.
Ironically, this same Nana Akufo-Addo’s abusive Sir John and Hopeson Adorye, were the ‘militia’ who led the assault on former President Kufuor for accepting to honor an invitation to the investiture of John Mahama as the fourth President of the fourth Republic.
Mr. Afoko started the “house cleaning exercise” in the state owned and widely circulated Daily Graphic when he utterly painted Sir John and Adorye’s conduct as “un-NPP like”; a move craftily employed to rundown the Akufo-Addo elements to the advantage of his political ambitions and his other soul-mates in the Ashanti cabal like Kwabena Agyepong, who is bracing-up for the General Secretary position.
This latest move by the two pillars in the Ashanti/Northern bloc is part of a strategy to neutralize the strength of Nana Akufo-Addo’s men in charge of the party currently, and snatch the leadership of the NPP from them ahead of the party’s congress to elect national executives, who will supervise the selection of a new torch bearer for the 2016 polls.
As stated earlier, it was these same Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie and Hopeson Adorye, acting in the interest of Nana Akufo-Addo, who publicly embarrassed former President Kufuor; when in the full glare of the cameras they almost blocked him from leaving his house to attend the investiture of President John Mahama on January 7, 2013.
As if by accident, these two insolent Akufo-Addo elements landed themselves in the dragnet of the Supreme Court for scandalizing the court, an act Sir John and Hopeson Adorye were convicted for criminal contempt and fined GHc5,000 and GHc2,000 respectively.
This happening, was the smoking-gun needed by the Ashanti/North section of the party, who have all along been sitting on the fence with their political guns gracefully oiled and awaiting the ruling of the Supreme Court to shove Akufo-Addo and his henchmen into the political garbage can.
Meanwhile, sources close to the Ashanti and Northern set told this paper, influential members of the two groups who are also members of the party’s NEC will be strongly pushing for the resignation of the Sir John at today’s NEC meeting, a move the source added will begin the dismantling of Akufo-Addo’s men at the helm of the party structures.
