Have Some Shame, Ohene-Ntow!

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Garden City, New York

May 26, 2015

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

It is about the best that Nana Akufo-Addo can do ahead of this week's emergency meeting of the New Patriotic Party's National Council of Elders. The meeting is scheduled to determine whether Mr. Paul Afoko, the party's National Chairman, and his General-Secretary, Mr. Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, have the confidence of the rank-and-file membership of the New Patriotic Party to continue to stay in office. This, of course, comes in the wake of the acid-dousing assassination of the Upper-East's Regional Chairman of the NPP, Mr. Adams Mahama, on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Mr. Mahama died barely eight hours later the next day.

So far, two criminal suspects have been arrested in connection with Mr. Mahama's death. One of the prime suspects - there may be other co-conspirators in the wings - is Mr. Gregory Afoko, the younger brother of the NPP's National Chairman. What makes this barbaric case even more bizarre is the fact that in the wake of Mr. Mahama's brutal assassination, Mr. Paul Afoko went public to vehemently deny that his brother had been involved in the attack. The elder Mr. Afoko claimed, as an alibi, that Brother Gregory had been fast asleep when the fatal incident occurred. He went further to shore up his alibi by claiming that the motorcycle which his brother would have used to travel to the scene of the crime, had be confirmed by police investigators to have been "ice-cold" to their touch, meaning that the motorcycle had not be used for several hours on the night of the attack.

Now that Mr. Gregory Afoko, an ex-convict who spent time in prison, has been indicted and charged with the murder of Mr. Adams, the NPP's National Chairman has some real explaining to do, especially since his brother, Gregory, is also known to be in charge of a vigilante group which he, allegedly, formed to protect Brother Paul, whenever the latter visited both the Upper-East Region and the Bolgatanga municipality. Investigators may want to know to what extent Mr. Paul Afoko had any dealings with his younger brother's unnamed vigilante group. The NPP National Chairman has also denied that he has any hand in the death of Mr. Mahama.

There have also gone up vehement calls for the immediate resignation of Messrs. Afoko and Kwabena Agyei Agyepong. Already, the executive committees of six of the country's ten regions have returned a vote-of-no-confidence in the two men. This is precisely where things appear to be getting messy. A lock-step associate of Messrs. Afoko and Agyepong, who is himself a notorious detractor of the NPP's flagbearer for Election 2016, and a former General-Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Ohene Ntow, is calling on Nana Akufo-Addo to unreservedly endorse the latter's own personal destruction by rejecting the no-confidence votes returned against Messrs. Afoko and Agyepong, who may well be picked up by police authorities as the case continues to develop.

So far, Nana Akufo-Addo has exhibited sterling leadership qualities by publicly declaring that he has absolutely nothing to do with vehement attempts being made by those with the best interests of the party at heart to remove the NPP National Chairman and his insufferably arrogant and egomaniacal General-Secretary. Fortunately, Nana Akufo-Addo, a front-row trial lawyer, has loudly and clearly indicated that he has absolutely no intention of getting in the way of the democratic right of party stalwarts, supporters and sympathizers to ensure that the party's chances at Election 2016 are not criminally aborted by nihilistic detractors like Nana Ohene Ntow (See "Akufo-Addo Must Publicly Back NPP Troubled Two - Ohene Ntow" 5/26/15).

I really don't see Nana Akufo-Addo's naively collaborating with the very people who have been defaming him and calling him all sorts of unprintable names to unwisely upend the superior will of the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian electorate poised to returning Ghana to a progressive path of development. It is quite obvious that Nana Ohene Ntow and his associates lack the requisite depth of conscience and moral authority to either dictate or determine what is best for both party and country.

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