Nitiwul Is Right On Talensi

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

Garden City, New York

July 12, 2015

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net

The New Patriotic Party's deputy parliamentary minority leader, Dominic Nitiwul, put his rhetorical finger on the right button when he indicated in the wake of his party's loss of the Talensi by-election, that in spite of Talensi's being a traditional stronghold of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), the NPP could still have retained the seat if the internal bickering in the party had been wisely brought under control (See "We Knew NDC Will [sic] Win Talensi Seat - Nitiwul" Adomonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/10/15). The Bimbilla, Northern-Region, native is also right to observe that the fact that only 42-percent of the voters of Talensi cast their ballots for the NDC winner of the July 7 by-election clearly indicates that, indeed, the people of Talensi had resoundingly rejected the Mahama government.

This is because since 1992, that is, the beginning of Ghana's Fourth-Republican dispensation, NDC has routinely carried 70-percent of the Talensi vote. It was also clear that if the NPP had decided to forge a highly unlikely alliance with the Left-leaning People's National Convention (PNC), it could well have retained the seat or prevented the NDC from regaining the same. NPP pundits would also do well to analyze on a constituency-by-constituency basis, what the party needs to do to boost its image and standing in the three northern regions. It is not savvy for key NPP operatives to act on the practically and patently false assumption that Talensi is the traditional stronghold of the NDC. Moreso, when by its very swinging across the partisan divide in 2012, the constituents of Talensi meaningfully demonstrated that they were capable of making political choices on th basis of performance, rather than blind loyalty or herd mentality.

The acid-dousing assassination of the NPP's Upper-East regional chairman, Mr. Adams Mahama, by some of the latter's internal detractors, and the bitter exchanges that followed the wake of Mr. Mahama's demise, may well have significantly affected the fortunes of the party. Moreso, when the younger brother of Mr. Paul Afoko, the NPP's national chairman, had been named as the prime suspect in Mr. Mahama's brutal assassination. As of this writing, Mr. Gregory Afoko was still awaiting bail hearing. His alleged accomplice, Mr. Issah Musah, has already been granted a bail bond. Mr. Musah is alleged to have purchased the liquid acid that was used to fatally attack Mr. Mahama.

I personally believe that the alleged absence of Mr. Paul Afoko and General-Secretary Kwabena Agyei Agyepong at Talensi had little bearing on the results of the by-election. If anything at all, I am more inclined to believe that the physical presence of Messrs. Afoko and Agyepong at Talensi may well have escalated the level of pandemonium and violence, especially while the alleged culprits and masterminds of the brutal murder of Mr. Mahama remained formally uncharged, unprosecuted and unpunished. Messrs. Afoko and Agyepong have been widely faulted for having fomented the wanton acts of hostility that either directly or indirectly led to the death of the former Upper-East's NPP regional chairman.

Going into Election 2016, the key operatives of the NPP need to be focused on the party's campaign platform by sharply fleshing out the party's manifesto as well as its item-by-item development agenda. The NPP needs to sharply differentiate its policies and agenda from those of the NDC, if it is to be made recognizable and attractive to undecided and swing voters.

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