Kufuor supports suspensions – NPP

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor is in support of the decision by the leadership of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to suspend some national executives of the party for indiscipline, Deputy Communications Director Maame Afua Akoto has told Class News.

Second Vice-Chairman Sammy Crabbe and General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong were suspended indefinitely by the NPP’s National Executive Committee (NEC) on Thursday December 10, 2015, by a unanimous decision. The two are accused of breaching various party regulations, including their insistence that suspended national chairman Paul Afoko was still the legitimate chairman of the NPP.

Mr Crabbe has described the suspensions as a coup d’état and referred to the Committee as a group of people who met to have fun. He vowed not to kowtow to the “coup makers” and “extremists” who want him out of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo family.

While condemning Mr Crabbe for using foul adjectives against the elders of the party – some of whom are members of the NEC – Ms Afua Akoto told Class News’ Regina Borley Bortey in an interview on Friday December 11, 2015 that a person like former President Kufuor will not support, what in her view, was Mr Crabbe’s uncultured attitude.

“He [Crabbe] should be ashamed of himself,” she said, adding: “…Let me say this clearly that President Kufuor is not in support of this attitude they are putting up. President Kufuor is not in support of this. He is in support of the decision of the party.”

Meanwhile, Mr Crabbe has said he will sue the “coup makers” in the party if they try to stop him from carrying out his duties as a legitimate vice-chairman.

“I shall proceed to court if anybody, in any manner or form, tries to restrain me from going out there [to] perform my duty that has been assigned to me by the party in Tamale,” Mr Crabbe told Class News’ Parker Wilson in a separate interview on Friday.

Mr Crabbe said he will not allow himself to be bulldozed out of the party through a coup.

Some supporters of the party were seen in jubilant mood popping champagne at their Asylum Down headquarters to celebrate the punishment handed down by the National Executive Committee (NEC) to Mr Kwabena Agyepong, General Secretary, and Mr Crabbe, on Thursday December 10.

The NEC upheld a recommendation by the Disciplinary Committee to suspend the two national officers for indiscipline.

Disciplinary proceedings were started against them following a petition filed by some party members.

Both Mr Agyepong and Mr Crabbe had said in various media interviews that they still saw suspended chairman Paul Afoko as the legitimate chairman of the party, despite a decision by the NEC to suspend the first-ever elected northern chairman indefinitely for allegedly working against the interests of the NPP and its flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo.

While Mr Agyepong is said to have shown some level of remorse and cooperated with the leadership of the party as far as the disciplinary hearings were concerned, Mr Crabbe did not accord the party leadership that respect.

It had been recommended by the Disciplinary Committee that Mr Agyepong be suspended for 15 months, but the NEC decided to hand him an indefinite suspension, just as Mr Crabbe and Mr Afoko. The decision was a unanimous one.

Mr Afoko, Mr Agyepong, and Mr Crabbe are all seen in the party as belonging to the Kufuor/Alan faction. Their leadership of the party has been fraught with suspicion since they took office in April last year. Mr Boadu becomes the second national executive of the NPP to step into an acting position above him. First national vice-chairman Freddie Blay has been acting as chairman since the suspension of Mr Afoko some two months ago.

Mr Crabbe said those who were at the NEC meeting were a group of people who met “to have fun…and they’ve made a pronouncement. I don’t recognise that. It’s not coming from the party.”

“I continue to carry myself as the second vice-chairman,” he said, adding: “If they think that that should not be the case, they should go to court and seek a restraining order on me, but if anybody anywhere tries to, through violence – because that is what they are now perpetuating everywhere – stop me in any manner or form, I shall report it to the authorities and seek a restraining order not on the party because the party has done nothing to me, but on those individuals who are trying to subvert the constitution of the party, the coup makers…,” he said.