What Wrongs Did JAK and Alan Do to NPP?
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) stands out as the only true liberal democratic party in Ghana. It is supposed to be a beautiful union of like-minded people, who can freely express their thoughts and choose whichever side to belong to and the party was very united.
That was before then. When the Institution or Establishment made up of mainly pro-UNC members started taking over the party, during the era of H.E. J.A. Kufuor, sharp divisions were created with pro-PFP members being classified as enemies and pro-UNC members classified as the true members and owners of the party. The party got divided.
Today, it will be difficult for anyone tagged as Kufuor boy or pro-Alan to be considered for anything in the NPP. Whatever Kufuor did to deserve such treatments, is not clear.
H.E. J.A. Kufuor become flag bearer for the NPP in 1996 and went on to contest the general elections that year but lost. While in the case of Adu-Boahen, who was flag bearer in 1992, the Young Executive Forum bought him a brand-new SUV for his campaign, but nothing was bought for Kufuor when he became flag bearer.
After, elections, Kufuor took a private and personal visit to the US and met with friends and associates there, who gave him money. Back in Ghana, the party national chairman, Peter Ala Adjetey, a pro-UNC, demanded that he paid the money into party coffers or face court action. Kufuor did not and proved that the money in question did not belong to the party.
He put up his name again to contest the party’s presidential primary in 1998. The Institution started mocking him by saying, “if you take rotten cassava to the market and is not sold, you do not take it back to the market the following day.” Yet, fast-forward to between 2008 and 2016, Nana Addo was urged on to contest the presidential elections, three times, without anyone saying it should only be twice-too-many, until he won the elections.
On the day of the presidential primary in Sunyani, in October 23, 1998, the venue was stormed by anti-Kufuor groups with huge sums of money to compromise the delegates. The General Secretary, sealed off the voting area, preventing them from achieving their evil and corrupt intentions. Kufuor won the primaries with almost 65% of valid votes cast, to contest the presidential elections, again.
In 1999, the Institution went to the General Secretary and demanded Kufuor’s replacement as flag bearer, through another Congress, because to them, he was not campaigning well. Their request was turned down by the GS since, Congress had decided who was to lead the party.
Kufuor won the 2000 presidential election and became president. He picked his appointees, not based on loyalty but on the ability to deliver. He tasked them to put in their best with whatever experience they had, to gain good results for government and party, for the benefit of all Ghanaians.
Many of the members of the Institution got positions in government and as someone put it, during cabinet meetings, Kufuor was always the opposition leader.
The Institution made sure it used whatever opportunity it got to embarrass President Kufuor. It was as if its members would want Kufuor to fail as president for all they cared. It did not matter that he was a president from their own party.
On one occasion during an NPP function, one of the national executives organized party members to hoot at the president. This irresponsible intention was stopped by the General Secretary. Again, during the 2006 National Delegates conference to elect national officers, which took place on the University of Ghana’s campus in Accra, great disrespect was shown to the president by party delegates who were directed by some national executive officers.
Kufuor was to meet them in a lecture hall and all were seated, with some putting their legs up on tables. Apart from government appointees, no one stood up to acknowledge his presence even though it was announced, when he entered the hall. A great show of disrespect.
When government acquired the Civil Aviation lands at Labone, Accra, for the construction of the AU village, the La land owners were deceived by the Institution that they can reclaim the land when they take the matter up in court. A very prominent lawyer and a pro-UNC, Rt. Hon. Peter Ala Adjetey represented them in court against his president and party man. They lost the case.
Some of Kufuor’s appointees deliberately misconducted themselves in office and that warranted the demand for their resignation by the president. Their intention was to make the Kufuor’s administration look corrupt in the eyes of all Ghanaians.
The then national chairman, Haruna Esseku granted an interview to a media house, arranged by a minister in Kufuor’s government. What came public was that the chairman spoke about kick-backs from the seat of government. Haruna denied ever saying there were kick-backs in the Castle to the day he died.
The question is, why would a minister serving under Kufuor arrange for a reporter to interview the national chairman and spike his responses to make the president look bad? Their conducts were to openly display their hatred for Kufuor and pro-PFP members of the party.
The agenda to destroy Kufuor because he is a PFP element went on to his last days in power. Ghanaians were lied to that Kufuor made the NPP lose the 2008 elections, because he did not like Nana Addo.
The truth is, it was the UNC elements including the then flag bearer, Nana Addo, who made NPP lose the presidential run-off.
Evidence came out after the first run-off, that in one or two constituencies in the Volta region, the number of votes cast far exceeded the number of registered voters.
The Electoral Commissioner, Afari-Gyan, was notified and he scheduled a meeting with the party lawyers to come with evidence at 12 noon on an appointed day. That day, twelve noon came and went. The lawyers led by pro-UNC members got there after 2 pm when the EC had long left office. They went to acquire court injunction to prevent the EC from conducting the Tain elections.
President Kufuor only got to know about the injunction when he was in Sunyani on his way to Tain. He got angry and disappointed and returned to Accra. NPP lost 2008 because of the conducts of the pro-UNC members of the Institution. Could it be that, they did not want Kufuor to have the honour of being the first president in Ghana to hand over to a president from his own party? Any intentions to make Nana Addo set that record in 2025, was quashed by the negative conduct of the Institution.
Records show that President Kufuor led the NPP to a very dignified loss to the NDC in 2008. The difference between votes JEA Mills and Nana Addo had, were 40,586 votes. Mills secured 50.23% and Nana had 49.77%. In Parliament, the NDC secured 116 seats (50.43%) and NPP secured 107 seats (46.52%).
Fast forward to 2024, after another eight years of NPP in power, Nana Addo has this on his report card to show: John Mahama (NDC) 56.42% and Mahamudu Bawumia (NPP) 41.75%. The difference between votes acquired by the two leading candidates was 1,714,179 in favour of Mahama. It is very interesting to note that John Mahama added only 378,608 votes to his 2020 votes, while Bawumia had 1,852,976 less votes than Nana Addo had in 2020.
In Parliament today, the NDC has 183 seats (60.30%) while the NPP has 89 seats (32.25%). This clearly shows that the Institution in the NPP made up of pro-UNC elements do not have the interest of the party at heart.
Today, through acts of the Institution, the NPP is completely divided and those who suffer are those known to be or perceived to be Kufuor’s persons.
In the case of Alan Kyerematen, he was considered a Kufuor boy and it was wrongly speculated that Kufuor groomed him to take over after him. This is far from the truth. Not a single pesewa was ever given to Alan by Kufuor to support his campaign. Kufuor always wanted to stay neutral, as a good father, whose children are competing each other for some prize.
So, for no reason but for the fact that Alan was perceived to be a pro-PFP element, the stage was set to make him an enemy to the party.
After Alan decided not to engage Nana Addo in a run-off, he was not included in the national campaign team. Then his supporters were harassed all across the country by fellow NPP members under the directives of the Institution. He kept notifying the then national chairman, Mac Manu, to bring order in the party, since NPP needed to be united, going into elections. All his pleas fell on deaf ears. He then wrote officially to Mac Manu to announce that if he did not control that mess in the party, he would resign. Presto, Alan is accused to this day that he resigned from the NPP because he lost the primary.
The hatred for Alan became clear to all Ghanaians, when at the last rally of the Assin North bye-election, the national organizer, Nana Boakye, snatched the mic from him when he was about to speak and gave it to Bawumia to inform the world that the then vice president was the anointed one.
The image Nana Boakye portrayed to the world, was that there was no unity and respectin the NPP. That caused the party’s defeat at that bye-election and set the tone for its worse electoral defeat. (Please stay tune for the Martyrdom of Paul and Gregory).
Hon. Daniel Dugan
