The UP Tradition Must Be Respected
When victory came in 2016 and party members go to seek for jobs and other opportunities to enhance their lives, they will be told, Prof. Attafuah said, that the president had directed that no party member should be employed and Gabby Otchere Darko justified this by saying it was about political neutrality.
All that the party grassroot and foot soldiers are to do is to campaign and make the party win elections and after that just sit down quietly and wait for the next elections.
When the opportunity came for the NPP government to nominate the first Special Persecutor, Martin Amidu of NDC was opted for, over many more brilliant NPP lawyers by way of political neutrality.
Martin had a bad track record, even as a minister in Atta Mills’ government. In the end, this outcast in his NPP became their hero, because he came out to label his employers as very corrupt and voluntarily resigned.
This is what happens when independent minded NPP members are set aside for non-party members who inwardly do not accept the UP-Tradition values.
Is Hon Atta Akyea ignorant of the harm, in imposing candidates on the Party? In 2008, the NPP lost the General Elections mainly because of interferences by the Party’s elites into constituencies’ choices of parliamentary candidates.
Kwesi Kyei Frimpong and I.K. Poku-Edusie were chosen over Nana Yaw Ofori-Kuragu and Joseph Osei-Owusu in the Bosome-Freho and Bekwai constituencies, respectfully in the Ashanti region.
In Nkawkaw constituency Kwabena Edusa Okekyere was chosen over Seth Adjei Baah and Thomas Odonkor Ogajah was preferred over DCE Alhaji Saani Iddiin Wulensi.
In all cases the rejected ones won their seats on independent tickets. Same happened in 2020 in Fomena constituency.
This is what Hon. Atta Akyea believes in and wants to be legalized in NPP so that, only a privilege few would appoint party officers, parliamentary and presidential candidates. Whether such persons are firm on the ground and can win elections, would not be the criteria.
In such a case, while other parties will be looking for people who will appeal to the electorates and put them across as candidates, NPP will be doing “it is whom you know” and bring along people who may be unknown and not loved, for the Party to lose big time.
In the 1951 Elections, the UGCC picked Omanhene of Assin Atandasu, Nana Sir Tsibu Darku IX, as its candidate for one of the two Sekondi-Takoradi seats.
Nana Darku was a Knight of the Order of the British Empire, Leader of the Joint Provincial Council and Senior African Member of the Burns Constitution, while the CPP picked a common railway engineer, as in, train driver, Alfred Pobee Biney as its candidate.
The latter was a grassroot man, loved by most people, while the former, only appealed to the elite. At the end of the day, Alfred Pobee Biney had 51 votes and Nana Sir Tsibu Darku IX had only 13 votes.
Hon Atta Akyea wants to revive the failures of his granduncle, Dr. J.B. Danquah, and make them party policies in the NPP, a policy that looks down on the youth and ordinary members.
He is talking about the need to set aside the current NPP’s policy that does not reward a vice president to automatically take over from the president to lead the party.
This is certainly an agenda to make the flag bearer to be appointed by a privilege few. As soon as this is implemented, there is no way the Party membership will have any say in the choice of flag bearers.
Presidents will hand over to their vice.So, where is the voice of the grassroot in all this? What are they to do, if not only to campaign?
Hon Atta Akyea, is saying it is waste of money and needless to elect a flag bearer because of mistakes of the past? What mistakes, is Atta Akyea referring to? Is he saying for real that the Kufuor Administration which had H.E. Aliu Mahama as vice president, was the worst ever NPP presidency?
And Aliu Mahama was non-performing and so this warrants the change of the way the Party elects its flag bearer? Atta Akyea should be bold and rubbish the good works of H.E. Aliu Mahama.
He is rather exposing himself as one who feels that no one can touch him, so he can freely break the Party rules, and this breeds indiscipline.
When Hopeson Adorye went ahead to remind Party faithful about the convention in the Party, where the arrangement is for a Southerner Christian flag bearer and a Northerner Muslim running mate, all hell broke loose.
Musa Superior fired salvos at Adorye and Hon Farouk Aliu Mahama, whose father we are now been told achieved nothing, immediately followed suite.
Today, Hon Atta Akyea is suggesting some more dangerous policies, that could break up the Party and send it into history like how J.B. Danquah and others did and the UGCC got dissolved after only five years, and yet we cannot hear Musa and Farouk, coming out with condemnations.
So, it is true what Fiddler said in Roots, that “some live by the law and others die by the same law!”
“Atta Akyea, please, the precepts and tenets of the UP Tradition must be obeyed and upheld, not disrespected.”
Hon Daniel Dugan
