Misguided NPP elements ‘threatened’ 2016 victory – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Akufo-Addo has said some members of the now-governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) who harboured “misguided ideas” almost destablised the party and threatened its victory in the 2016 general elections but for the courageous intervention and guidance of the late C. K. Tedam.

"In the recent life of the NPP, the role he [C.K. Tedam] played in steadying the ship of our party when it was under threat from people with misguided ideas, about how to progress the work of our party, that is something that would feature very strongly in any narrative about C.K. Tedam," the President said.

Without mentioning names, Mr Akufo-Addo said: "In that difficult year of 2015”, Mr Tedam’s “strength, courage, and insistence on principle, tradition and culture of our party helped take us through the threat that was posed to the stability of our party and to the prospects of the victory of the party the year after".

Nana Akufo-Addo further noted that: "Devoting the victory of 2016 to him [Mr Tedam] would not be out of place whatsoever because of the tremendous role he played in steadying the ship of our party in 2015."

Addressing a delegation of elders of the family of the late C. K. Tedam and elders of the NPP at the Jubilee House when they paid a courtesy call on him to formally inform him of the passing of the statesman, Nana Akufo-Addo said credited the late Chairman of the party’s Council of Elders for the clever manner in which he resolved the internal crisis that bedevilled the party ahead of the 2016 elections, which the NPP eventually won.

The leadership of the NPP in 2015 suspended its Chairman and General Secretary at the time, Mr Paul Afoko and Mr Kwabena Agyapong, over allegations that their actions were inimical to the unity and victory of the party in the 2016 general elections.

The president said Mr Tedam was the last link to the people who founded the NPP tradition and the current generation of NPP members, adding that the lessons that he gave the present generation was very far-sighted.

He announced that the late C.K. Tedam will be given a state burial in his hometown in Paga, Upper East Region.

The spokesperson for the delegation, Colonel John Obibah Kuseh, in his address announced that the late statesman will be laid to rest on the 22 June 2019.

He registered the sincere thanks of the family to the President for the honour done their late royal in offering to give him a state burial.