Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama, Member of Parliament (MP) for Yendi, said the statement of Mr. Hopeson Adorye, a member of the Communication Team of the New Patriotic Party (NNP), that “Northerners and Muslims are only fit for running mate positions” was a mockery of our founding ideals.
He said the founding ideals of the NPP were to build a political grouping of national character that lends, tout de suite, the liberty of inclusion at the pinnacle of the party, in spite of the circumstances of your birth, creed, religious suasion or origin.
Alhaji Forouk Aliu Mahama made the remarks in reactions to the statement made by Mr. Adorye.
“He said the Busia-Dombo tradition had thrived on the tenets, endured all the political hostilities and persecutions in the pre and post independent era, and had transmogrified into our great NPP today.
“It is in the NPP that the son of a koko seller in the far hinterland of Yendi can rise up to be the running mate of his party, and consequently, Vice President of his country. That doctrine is what makes our tradition enduring.”
Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama further said: “The least we can do as Latter-Day adherents is to hold sky-high such ideals and guard them jealously.
It is a sectional thought to seem to suggest that the Dombos of our trinity are comfortable and fit for perpetual Running Mate in our tradition.
“That prognosis in itself is defeatist, retrogressive and squanders the gains we have made over the years to disburse our political ecosystem of such impression. That’s not the promise our founders toiled for.”
He said in 1996, after the Great Alliance of the NPP and Peoples Convention Party (PCP) failed to secure electoral victory with then John Agyekum Kufuor and Running Mate Kow Nkensen Arkah respectively, the best political combination that was proven to be electorally efficient was the Southern-Northern or Northern-Southern configurations.
He said the NPP succeeded with the Mr. Kufuor/Alhaji Aliu Mahama ticket and that has since been a permanent feature of not only our party but our friends on the other half of the aisle, “perhaps, it would have been fair for him to suggest we implore the Northern-Southern configuration too. This is the time for us to annihilate the perception not entrench it.”
The Yendi Legislator noted that it was absolutely out of place to proceed, on that backdrop, to submit that some groupings were good to play second fiddle, adding that such a notion was lethal and withers the growth of inclusion in our party and must be discouraged, more so, to be shepherded by people considered as leaders on their own accord.
“Beyond the argument of the trinity, what should occupy our minds is the capacity, the mass appeal, the political flair, capability and wherewithal to lead us to accomplish the task of annexing a third consecutive term.”
