The National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was right on the money, when Mr. Freddie Blay recently opined to Mr. Kwame Adinkra of Atinka-Fm Radio that among the good things that resulted from the widespread controversy sparked by the invitation of the three retired South African policemen, invited into the country to train security detail for Messrs. Akufo-Addo and Bawumia, was the auspicious alerting of the top administrators of the Ghana Police Service (GPS) to the fact that it had a bounden obligation to protect all key players of the country’s political parties, irrespective of ideological suasion (See “Police Protection for Flagbearers Motivated by SA 3 Saga – Blay” Atinkaonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/5/16).
Actually, Mr. Blay is the Acting National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party. I guess my righteous impatience caused me to describe the publisher-proprietor of the Daily Guide as the substantive National Chairman of the country’s largest political party. At any rate, it is about time the NPP impasse got expeditiously resolved in favor of both the short- and long-term interests of the party and the country at large. The fact of the matter is that you simply cannot run a party effectively with a panoply of pinch-hitters or substitute headquarters administrators. And so maybe it is time for the present headquarters operatives to be permanently named to their respective positions. Even in the highly unlikely event of him winning his case in court, Mr. Paul A. Afoko, the suspended substantive NPP National Chairman, would be too damaged, largely self-inflicted, and in woefully short supply of credibility to be effective.
The man has said too many negative things that are damaging to the image and reputation of the party and its leaders to be deemed effective or capable of managing the affairs of the same. At any rate, what fascinates me most about the sudden salutary turnaround of the top-brass of the Ghana Police Service is the laudably professional decision to avail the flagbearer and running-mate of every legitimately registered political party in the country of two GPS guards who would provide these politicians with 24-hour security protection. Even so, what this clearly means is that unless literally pushed against the wall, the government is highly unlikely to decently conduct itself within the legal parameters of social justice. Needless to say, there was the imperative need for the leadership of the New Patriotic Party to demonstrate in no uncertain terms that if the Mahama government was unwilling to step up to the plate and conduct itself as the people’s government, the leaders of the country’s largest opposition party would not be taken for granted.
I also have absolutely no doubt in my mind that IGP Kudalor may well have been nudged by some fair-minded resident Western diplomats to do the right thing or risk the deleterious consequences of having the country devolve into an irreparable state of anomie. The looming prospect of being bereft of his remarkable perks and fat paycheck and comfortable livelihood may very well have also prompted Mr. Kudalor to spring into action in a quite timely manner. On the question of the possibility of Paul Afoko’s return to the NPP’s headquarters as the party’s substantive National Chairman, I strongly believe that much of it depends on the outcome of the trial of Mr. Gregory Afoko, the younger brother of the suspended NPP bigwig, who stands indicted for the acid-dousing assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama, the former Upper-East NPP Regional Chairman.
That the elder Mr. Afoko may be directly implicated in Mr. Mahama’s murder, stems primarily from the fact of his publicly abortive attempt to cop an alibi for his brother, Gregory, a man widely known to have had a serious criminal record prior to his alleged involvement in the murder of Mr. Mahama. As I have hinted before in several previous articles, in a functional and civilized democracy, Mr. Afoko would have since long been forced to resign his party post. And whether he was found guilty or not would absolutely have been of no consequence; for everything would have boiled down to leadership integrity and credibility. And a man who so cynically cops a dud alibi for his incriminated relative might just as well count himself out of the running, as it were.
Now, Mr. Cephas Arthur, Head of Public Relations of the Ghana Police Service, has a few questions to answer vis-à-vis the professionalism of the GPS, because he claims that the policy and practice of availing security protection to all flagbearers and their running-mates was instituted as relatively far back as 2008. And also that the practice had been repeated during the 2012 presidential and parliamentary elections. And so what happened this time around that, but for the very savvy decision by Nana Akufo-Addo and his associates to protect themselves, absolutely no security protection would have been offered them by the top-brass of the GPS?
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