NPP elders react to Afoko

Council of Elders of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has affirmed its decision to have National Chairman of the Party, Paul Afoko, suspended as contained in a petition to the party’s Disciplinary Committee.

It follows claims by persons close to Mr Afoko that the decision to drag the party Chairman to the Disciplinary Committee over charges of constitutional breaches and trading internal party affairs in the media contrary to laid-down procedures of the NPP as well as authorizing the police to probe the party, was taken by only five members of the Council and not the entire membership.

In a letter dated September 7, 2015 signed by the Chairman of the Council of Elders, C.K. Tedam and addressed to the Disciplinary Committee, he among other things, demanded that at least Chairman Afoko be suspended from his office until after the 2016 elections.

They are also seeking “appropriate recommendation to promote discipline, peace, order, harmony and progress in the party towards election 2016.”

But when the time came for Mr. Afoko to be heard on Wednesday, he failed to show up to the disappointment of members of the Council of Elders who waited for him for four hours in vain.

A statement issued in Accra yesterday and signed by the spokesman for the Council of Elders, Dr Baffour Adjei Bawuah, indicated, “This story was put up either to embarrass the National Council of Elders or out of malice and ignorance. Committees all over the world work through subcommittees along the lines Parliaments operate.

“The Council would want to inform all Ghanaians and particularly NPP members, supporters and sympathisers that the Council ensures that its meetings are always accurately reported. It is normal and practical in large organizations for the documentation to be drafted by smaller groups (if not individuals), but all final decisions are by consensus and not by acrimonious division.”

With a membership of over 30 individuals, the statement said the Council “cannot be expected to be an exception to this system which even parliaments all over the world use,” insisting that “The decision to refer Chairman Afoko to the NPP’s National Disciplinary Committee was along this line.”

The Council has therefore advised all Ghanaians to try to refrain from making categorical statements on the basis of conjecture or what it described as “unjustifiable deliberate falsehood” with specific reference to individuals who lay claim to being leaders or stalwarts or firebrands in the party, asking them to “know and respect party organs and procedures.”

Spokesperson for the NPP National Chairman, Nana Yaw Osei, who is also a member of the Disciplinary Committee came out strongly yesterday rubbishing the story that his boss was invited. He claimed that Afoko had not received any invitation from the Disciplinary Committee.

“Nobody has invited Afoko. If there was anything like that, I would be the first to know so they should just stop tarnishing his image because it won’t take us anywhere as a party.

“In fact, I’m a member of the disciplinary committee, and I can say on authority that no invitation has been extended to him,” he claimed without explaining why he also boycotted the committee’s meeting, being a member.