These days, news coming out from the New Patriotic Party, seems to admit that Alan Kyerematen’s exit had cruelly damaged the party and it may seem that the very people who screamed “Good Riddance,” when he left to form the Movement for Change (MFC) and run independent, are now eating humble bofrot and praying he comes back.
This humble appeal seems to support allegations, that in pages 68 and 69 of the Prof. Mike Ocquaye’s report on the reasons NPP performed badly in the 2024 General Elections, it stated that the Alan Exit factor contributed a lot.
Just at the time that H.E. John Mahama granted amnesty to nearly one thousand prisoners, the NPP also granted amnesty to suspended and dismissed members. What a coincidence! And all eyes were focussed on Alan and Afoko. But Afoko had never left the NPP.
Recently, my uncle, Hackman Owusu Agyeman, was in the news, talking about Alan. He accused Alan’s supporters of inflicting electoral and reputational damage to the NPP during the 2024 general elections. He admitted that Alan’s resignation left a deep scar on the NPP.
He condemned what he said was Alan’s repeated resignation and return cycle for weakening the party. But Alan had never resigned and returned to the party. In 2008, he continually drew the party’s attention, through Chairman Mac Manu, to orchestrated attacks on his supporters by other members of the party. Unfortunately, these appeals fell on deaf ears.
Alan then wrote an official letter to Chairman Mac Manu and indicated that without unity the party would not win the General Elections, and if attacks on his supporters did not cease, he would step out of the party for it to become united and win the elections. This was a conditional statement.
Instead of the elders of the party, waking up and looking into Alan’s grievances, they went about saying Alan had resigned because he lost the presidential primaries. And so, if they felt so and even the great B.J. da Rocha could say “good riddance” then it meant that they supported division in the party where supporters of the flag bearer could at any time attack supporters of other aspirants.
But if indeed Alan resigned in 2008 and returned, how come the party laws were not applied, for him to serve for at least two years before putting up his name for any office in the party? In 2010, Alan contested the presidential primaries.
The Establishment which took over the party in 2008, came to implement an order that made some party members to live by the party laws while some die by the same laws. Free choices are allowed but your choice could determine your fate. Choose Alan and you would perish, choose Nana Addo and you would have life everlasting.
From all indications what Uncle Hackman is saying means that the NPP has realised its mistake in luring Alan to quit from the NPP, which led to loss in votes. During the 2024 Presidential Election, the NPP had 2.1 million votes less than it had in 2020. In the Ashanti region the NPP lost over 400,000 votes than it had in 2020 and this worked out to over one-fifth of total national votes lost to the NPP.
It is possible that the confidential report attribute voters’ apathy to what the party did to Alan, that is why elders and gurus are calling out Alan’s name.
Since the Kufuor era came to an end and the Establishment took over, it threw the party’s honoured standards and principles into the storm drain. This same Establishment which during Kufuor’s era succeeded in separating Government from Party, so that President Kufuor could not have control over the NPP, made a quick 180ᵒ turn in 2009, and put the party fully under H.E. Nana Akufo Addo.
While in Kufuor’s time, he was not allowed to suggest any name for any position in the party, in Nana Addo’s hecould freely hand-pick party officers and even went on to imposeParliamentary Candidates (PC) on constituencies. Anyone who is not a favourite of Nana but managed to get elected into any office could be thrown out before long.
Many parliamentary candidates lost elections more due to internal attacks than anything else. All because Nana Addo had said that he could not work with them.
During the 2012 electioneering campaign some candidates perceived not to be pro-Nana,but could have won their seats, suffered that fate and lost. In some cases, presiding officers at some polling stations were compromised to reduce votes gained by the NPP candidate and award them to the NDC’s. This act had the blessings from the Establishment.
In the then Brong-Ahafo region, the strong dislike for a candidate, made flag bearer Nana Addo, to refuse to even talk to him or even attend a political rally organised by the PC, while he, Nana, was in town.
In 2020, with Alan still in the party, the NPP lost thirty-two seats in Parliament. So, the main problem is what the Establishment did. It must be noted that during the two terms of Nana Addo, NPP lost a total of eighty-two seats in Parliament, the highest ever recorded loss in this Fourth Republic.
Unfortunate as it is, under the Establishment some party members’ matters do not matter. Under a liberal democratic system of a center right party like the NPP, a democratic dictatorship evolved. In the first republic, Nkrumah’s word was final, under NPP after Kufuor, Nana Addo’s word was final. Nkrumah imposed parliamentary candidates on constituencies and Nana Addo did same. Is this surprising? For strong allegations reveal that Nana Addo was a strong CPP activist during his youth days.
That spirit might still in him when he took over the NPP and successfully removed a dye-in-the-wool, UP Traditionalist, Paul Afoko, replacing him with a dye-in-the-wool, socialist and Nkrumaist, Freddy Blay, who controlled the party, as national chairman, for seven years. The longest ever-serving chairman.
Instead of the party elders assembling to do serious self-criticism from which they would find outthat it was their faults which led to the party’s greatest loss, they are rather blaming Alan, while many party gurus are wishing he came back.
In September 2023, after Alan quit the party, Hon. Boakye Agyarko prophesied that Alan physically quit but many had quit in their hearts and that would show at the polls. Come 2024, over two million NPP supporters decided not to vote at all. And this affected the NPP.
By the way, did the party not say, “good riddance” when Alan quit? Did the party not say his resignation would have no effect on the NPP’s chances at the polls and that victory was sure and well packaged with the elections just a mere formality? So, why is Alan being blamed?
Serious and honest retrospection will reveal that the problems the NPP is facing today are the singular doing of all the elders under the Establishment. They moved away from the original principles of the party and implemented things that only pleased them, even when it meant violating party laws.
The party’s constitution mandates among others in Art 9 (1) under Expulsion of Member, that anyone who supports a candidate other than the party’s candidate shall forfeit his or her membership. But elders of the party who attacked PCs perceived to be non-Nana, and did serious underground campaign against them so they lost the elections, are not punished.
Paul Afoko was seriously mistreated by the NPP because Nana Addo never wanted him. Try hard as the Establishment did, it could not evoke Art. 11, which mandates that only those who elect an officer into office can remove him. No region agreed to submit any petition against Afoko because they saw nothing wrong with him. So, the Establishment unconstitutionally had him removed.
Today, Paul Afoko is out there talking and people are understanding things better and are hailing him. The NPP members who want him back as national chairman keep growing in leaps and bounds.
I will suggest that the elders, like Uncle Hackman must stop putting the blame on Alan for the party’s failures and rather restore back, the party’s original principles and standards. The Establishment must be disbanded because dictatorship cannot be allowed in a party like the NPP.
If the NPP, especially the elders and members of the Establishment, would continue mentioning Alan’s name in vain, he may come out and talk.And if Alan talks, that would be the end of the NPP, since many more millions will desert the party.
Uncle Hackman should know too well that the unguided principles in the party, which have been implemented after Kufuor’s era, is what is bearing sour fruits today. Alan is not at fault and so please, the party should fix the problem and leave him out.
In Sacred Scriptures, it is written that “temptations are inevitable, but woe to the one who tempts” (Matthew 18: 7), so Uncle Hackman and the elders must not tempt Alan to speak, because if he talks, woe to the party.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
