Oh, Poor Paul Afoko . . . Remember, the battle is the Lord’s

The first time I heard the name Paul Afoko was when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) national delegates' congress was in the process of electing a presidential candidate from the 17 contestants in December 2007.

On that night, Afoko was accused by no other person than the National Organiser of the NPP, Lord Commey, who usurped the powers of the then chairman of the party, Mr Peter Mac Manu, and publicly announced that Afoko was distributing US dollars to candidates to influence them to vote for one of the 17 candidates. It later became clear that the allegation was baseless and a wicked plot against Paul Afoko.

Regrettably, the NPP did not sanction Lord Commey for disgracing, falsely accussing Afoko, a bona fide delegate from the Builsa North constituency, and also seriously disrupting the voting for a presidential candidate. Again, the incident caused Afoko to lose his vote that night because by the time he had sorted himself out with the police, his constituency had finished voting and he was denied the access to vote.

It is important to note that the autocratic act of Lord Commey went on in many directions in the party and in the 2008 general election but nobody in the NPP sanctioned him – he was simply above the law.

In the Central Region, Lord Commey was the main man in charge of the vetting of parliamentary candidates where serious injustices were caused to some candidates who were deliberately frustrated and eliminated by Commey and his team. 

Commey’s team strangely and controversially disqualified popular candidates from Cape Coast and other constituencies,  giving the slots to unpopular candidates leading to the loss of seats already held by the NPP.

In one constituency in the Central Region, there were three candidates who were vetted for the parliamentary slot. Following the vetting, Commey’s vetting committee, without disqualifying two of the contestants, went ahead to declare one candidate unopposed. Till today, the party has not communicated to the two candidates who duly paid for their filing fees.

Therefore, I wasn’t too surprised when Afoko’s campaign for the chairmanship of the party was halted by the party’s vetting committee based on a very spurious allegation made by a faceless individual. The vetting committee, according to Afoko, has still not disclosed to him who his accuser was, yet the committee found it necessary to act on that allegation.

This act of conspiracy was committed against Paul Afoko who comes from the northern part of the country  at a time when one of the NPP members who loudly claims to be a leading member, Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, publicly accused his own party of being tribalistic. Nyaho was not unaware of the fact that his party had been accused on many occasions of being an Akan party, though he Nyaho wasn’t Akan. Thus, by publicly accusing the party of being Akan, he only confirmed what the party’s opponents had always said and also given a valuable campaign weapon to the NPP’s opponents.

Strangely, Nyaho Tamakloe and people like him who have publicly denigrated the NPP with their childish and unguarded statements have not been punished by the party. But I can assure the NPP that such ammunitions supplied by Nyaho and others would be conveniently and forcefully used by its opponents come the 2016 election.

For these and other reasons, it was too surprising that the vetting committee of the NPP failed to be guided by high currents and halted Afoko’s campaign based on a spurious allegation, knowing very well that Afoko was contesting with other members who were not from the north. No one from the north has ever occupied the national chairman position in the party.

There is no doubt that the NPP Vetting Committee has greatly disadvantaged Paul Afoko in his bid to become the chairman of the party. While the committee deliberately halted his campaign, his contestants were allowed to campaign. What kind of justice is this? And where in this world is one  accused without his accuser being known yet a firm action is taken on the allegation? Justice requires that the accuser be known and the accusation must be evidence-based.

There are equally good members of the party contesting the chairman position, yet I will urge party delegates to deeply consider that if the NPP is to shed off its Akan tag and save the party, then Paul Afoko is the man to vote for as the chairman of the party.

I am not aware of any clause in the NPP’s constitution allocating positions on ethnic basis, but in this particular instant, voting for Afoko, and ensuring that a member from the north occupies the chairman’s seat would greatly help the NPP to shed off its Akan skin.

One thing about this Paul Afoko is that even when he was clearly being discriminated against based on unproven allegations, he was still calling on his supporters to be calm. The Statesman in its February 21, 2014 issue, reported that “Paul Afoko has called for calm in the party, especially among his fans and supporters, in order not to put the party’s name into disrepute”. Wasn’t that beautiful, compared with other party members who usually destroy the party’s name in the media?

In 2007, when 17 members of the NPP were contesting for the flag bearer position, there were various wicked allegations and unnecessary accusations levelled against one another, after which damage control became extremely difficult.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC), if it doesn’t learn from what is going on in the NPP, would soon also launch itself into the same self-destruction when it (NDC) formally starts its election campaign, where Kofi Portuphy and, lately, Dan Abodakpi have been named by their supporters as ready to challenge old Kwabena Adjei, the incumbent.

As we grow our democracy as a nation, we could advance faster if our political parties would ensure that their internal democratic credentials equal what they claim to be on the national level.

For poor Paul Afoko, I urge him to be focused on his campaign and believe that the battle is the Lord’s. For the NPP, I can assure the party that Afoko’s loss in the impending internal election would have a negative impact on the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections.

PS: Mr Inspector-General of Police, the children and widow of Adjei Akpor, the 22-year-old man your men killed at Adenta on January 6, 2014, are still waiting for your response and justice.

The author is a Journalist and Political Scientist. He is the Head of the Department of Media and Communication Studies, Pentecost University College, Accra. - fasado@hotmail.com