Confronting the Anti-Akan NPP Intolerance

The Anti-Akan intolerance or campaign being waged against the NPP is not new in our political discourse but seems to have new crusaders. It started with the legislation that banned our party’s forbearers from political discourse in our dear country under Dr Nkrumah. It’s not surprising remnants of Dr Nkrumah who largely forms the majority base of the NDC are leading such anti-Akan bigotry in our time.

This well-rehearsed brief will achieve its ultimate object in three folds; first, when it successfully incites NPP followers to dislike the party’s dominance in the Akan regions, second when it generates a kind of general resentment against the NPP as Akan based party and finally when it alienates Akans in the NPP.

The current propaganda being spearheaded by the likes of Tony Aidoo, Allotey Jacobs, Fiifi Kwartey, Haruna Atta and the entire NDC’s communication team is aimed at one ultimate objective as Tony Aidoo once put it to “ban the NPP” from Ghana’s politics. The audacity of these people has no bounds and the danger is that they seem to have new agents, surrogates or messengers who nowadays repeat their well-rehearsed brief in the media.

But what is worrying and surprising is, apart from recruiting largely people in the media who ought to be balanced and objective. They have also found new recruits some with very enviable background and standing in the NPP who consciously or unconsciously have become apostles of the anti-Akan NPP bigots in their frustration and inability to tactically deal with the propaganda as it gains grip.

This propaganda foretells danger for the future of our great party if unchecked and if not already hurting us. The only beneficiary of this despicable propaganda is the NDC as it insulates their future electoral victories. We should respect our diversity but we should never feel disadvantaged by the party’s dominance in the Akan regions for they are also parts of Ghana. Let us exploit them tactically to our collective interest as one family under the collective values we share as NPP members in service of Ghana.

Lest we forget, the NDC as our arch political opponents would never advise us honestly on a strategy that could enhance our electoral chances. We better beware and allow knowledge to work in our party, other than the emotions. Our first guide as a party is to have a look and analyse the voting pattern of Ghanaians over the last twenty years before we think about resenting or disliking our Akan dominance.

The NPP is known for highly competitive contests which have no bounds regarding ethnicity of the candidates and rightly in line with the laws of Ghana. However, historically selection of vice presidential candidates is done to favour the three northern regions largely to meet or in reaction to the well calculated criticism against the party as Akan based to the disregard of any ultimate electoral analysis or benefit. It is significant to note that this repeated convention over the years have not changed the ethnocentric tag.

Moreover, given the outcome of the elections over the years it has largely not also benefited the NPP as it always put the party on the verge or border of victory. The dominance of the NPP in the Akan regions should rather be celebrated as it gives the party a great political advantage which should be strategically exploited. Our opponents know this and we ought to know. Indeed, it’s only the enemies of the NPP, having rightly perceived the effect of a dominant NPP in the Akan regions of Ghana and know the enormous challenge it could pose to their future electoral successes, who have sworn to do anything to incite and psyche ethnic resentment against the party. Let no NPP member yield in to this propaganda.

Yaw Awuah Boadu Ayeboafo, aayeboafo@hotmail.com, Tepa-Ashanti