The UP/NPP is known to be a violent party since its inception in the pre and post-independence days with bombs being hauled at their opponents, especially the founder of Ghana Dr. Kwame Nkrumah. In their desperate attempts to eliminate Dr. Nkrumah at all cost, the forebears of UP/NPP savagely descended on innocent Ghanaians beating, raping, maiming and killing others for exercising their democratic rights by opting for a the CPP-a party of their choice.
Historians both within and outside Ghana who are well versed in country political history have amply documented the violent and bloody activities carried out by the pedigree of the UP/NPP in the days leading up to the country’s independence and thereafter. For instance, Dr. Nkrumah was a target of UP/NPP barbaric barrage of attacks at Kulungugu, Flagstaff House, the Accra Sports Stadium and many other places such as Kumasi and Arena in Accra . Their violent activities culminated in the final overthrow of Nkrumah’s government which eventually led to his demise in far away Guinea .
With their debilitating and blood shedding activities, it wasn’t surprising when Akuffo Addo, in his desperate attempts to become president by hook or crook issued his now infamous FATWA of all die-be-die whereby he called on his supported to engage in violence and die for him in order for him to realize his lifelong unbridle ambitions; one can say unequivocally that he inherited the violent nature of his UP mentors.
One can hardly fathom as to what informed Kofi Koomson of the Chronicle to conclude that he could not sleep a wink with his eyes closed in the unlikely event of Akuffo Addo becoming president of Ghana . Albeit this however, it could be surmised that with the short history gathered about Akuffo Addo that the man is temperamental, hotheaded and a violent character into whose hands we can’t and should not entrust the country-Ghana to. It’s on record that Akuffo Addo defied all decency and decorum as well as parliamentary protocol and assaulted a fellow parliamentarian at the least provocation. We also recall Akuffo Addo standing aloof while a cameraman of ex-president Rawlings was beating to pulp by his goons in Kumasi at the heat of 2008 presidential and parliamentary campaigns. Akuffo Addo and his followers didn’t assign any meaning to their action other than to allege that the cameraman was in the hotel filming them whereas he and his entourage met the man there doing his job. In the same vein, we recall Akuffo Addo recounting the terror the NPP visited on their opponents during the recent Atiwa by-elections, while boasting that what was exhibited at that constituency was just a fraction of what the UP/NPP was capable of doing. Can we entrust the country into the hands of this man who will commandeer his thugs to assault others without any or at the least provocation?
Complying by his mantra of all-die-be-die, one of his ardent followers at Tarkwa in the Western Region is reported to be in the grips of the police for killing another NPP youth organizer. The killing followed a disagreement in the sharing of a bribery boot doled out to them by an incumbent NPP parliamentarian. The female MP is said to have greased the palms of NPP delegates with mere cell phones and roofing sheets in order to induce them to vote for her in the party’s primaries. One Isaac Boateng (a constituency organizer) who had been denied a lion’s share of the booty became aggrieved and therefore organized a thug to eliminate Philip Coffie, the youth organizer. Now, tongues are wagging and minds are enquiring as to what the UP/NPP could do to their opponents if they descending on each other in this manner, for like Chaucer says, if gold is rusting, what then will the iron do? Akufo Addo and his followers have demonstrated without any doubt that the crab can never begat a bird and that his violent and hotheadedness traits are eagerly being copied.
With the wave of violence and intolerance creeping through the NPP itself, one wonders if we are witnessing a prelude of what is to be unleashed on Ghanaians in the event Akuffo Addo doesn’t get his way of becoming president of Ghana in 2012. With such violence visited on one of their own, can we deem it reasonable to conclude that we’ve witnessed Act One, Scene One of Akuffo Addo/NPP’s thugery and that peace loving Ghanaians should gather their loins to fight off this monstrous tyranny so that it doesn’t transcend and traverse beyond Tarkwa and Atiwa into mainstream Ghana ?
Chris Gyamfi Boateng, MS. Info Philadelphia, USA
