Take Ohene Ntow with a pinch of salt

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

It was only a matter of time before the protracted impasse between the three suspended party headquarters executives of the “ruling-party-elect,” that is, the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) was brought to a closure and Messrs. Paul Afoko, Kwabena Agyepong and Sammy Crabbe reintegrated into the swing of party affairs (See “Afoko, Agyepong, Crabbe to be Reinstated in NPP” MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/19/16).

One fervidly hopes that the reintegration of these virulently anti-Akufo-Addo operatives will not be a matter of sheer formality, whereby everything becomes business as usual and the three men and their staunch associates and sometime fellow colluders get to return to their old ways at party headquarters.

This observation is very important because other than Mr. Kwabena Agyepong, who appears to have either remarkably amended his old poisonous ways or is fast on his way to doing so, neither Mr. Afoko, the indefinitely suspended New Patriotic Party’s National Chairman, nor party First-Vice Chairman, Mr. Crabbe, has demonstrated any public sense of remorse or appreciation for the fact that they were disciplined not arbitrarily or gratuitously, but directly as a result of having egregiously breached party protocol.

Indeed, a recent public statement issued by Mr. Afoko clearly indicated that the man still feels that both the membership of the New Patriotic Party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) and the National Council (NC) did him great wrong, when the NPP-NEC, the NPP-NC and the party’s Judiciary and Disciplinary committees moved to sanction these men.

Mr. Afoko also slyly suggested in his most recent public pronouncement that the party’s leadership may be woefully lacking in some aspects of the ideals of democratic principles such as the toleration of individual free-speech rights.

He even had the temerity to quote Dr. Busia grossly out of context to justify the flagrant breach of protocol or laid-down rules of the party, for which he had been punished. Mr. Crabbe has also exhibited crass arrogance and insufferable insolence.

For instance, he has continued to insist that the party’s leadership has absolutely no right to exact disciplinary sanctions against him, and that his sole and primary allegiance is to the delegates of the party’s National Congress that voted to elect him. This is clearly the intransigent stance of a man who may not yet be ready to comfortably settle in at party headquarters in order to assist with the sort of administrative heavy-lifting that is required to firm up a party that has just been popularly mandated to govern the country.

In other words, any panel or committee established to sort out the differences between Messrs. Afoko, Agyepong and Crabbe, on the one hand, and the party leadership, on the other, may have to ensure that these suspended party chiefs fully appreciate the basis upon which they were removed from party headquarters.

But even more importantly, they must be made to appreciate the fact that failure to accept the fact that their suspension was justifiably effected means that they are far from being ready and qualified to be reinstated into their former positions. They may also need to be put on probation to ensure that they are ready to effectively collaborate with those who actually put in their all, in order to volley the party off the gray margins of political opposition into the mainstream of governance and nation-building.

Where Nana Ohene Ntow, the man whose name partly constitutes the caption of this column, comes in is in regard to credibility. Anybody who has followed the political career of the former NPP General-Secretary for at least the past six years, knows fully well that Nana Ohene Ntow is at best as behaviorally problematic as the subjects of our discussion here, and at the worst even more venomous than Messrs. Afoko, Agyepong and Crabbe.

When I saw his name in the news report referenced at the beginning of this column, I couldn’t help but chuckle and sneer. I also don’t reckon that these quite formidable Akufo-Addo detractors deserve the level of media attention they are getting.

Definitely not a priority on the “To-Do-List” of the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party. Which, of course, is not the same as saying that Messrs. Afoko, Agyepong and Crabbe ought to be ignored. Definitely not! They simply ought not to be allowed to hijack the agenda of the man they fought tooth and nail to prevent from entering the Flagstaff House.