Kennedy Agyapong accuses 15 NPP chairmen of bad faith

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, has stated that all the 15 regional chairmen of the party who openly declared their support for John Boadu have been disgraced.

“All of them have been embarrassed. If it were somewhere, all of the chairmen would resign,” he stated.

Speaking an interview with journalists at the Accra Sports Stadium after the declaration of Justin Kodua Frimpong as General Secretary of the NPP, the maverick MP urged the 15 regional chairmen to learn their lesson.

“If you are a party chairman and you stab your people underground there, you cannot change their minds. That is the decision we have taken,” he stated.

The NPP held its national delegates conference on the theme: "Holding together, working together."

The immediate past General Secretary, Mr Boadu, who was widely tipped to be retained, got 2,524 votes while his main challenger, Mr Frimpong, garnered 2,837 to emerge victorious. The other competitors, Iddrisu Musah had 104; Frederick Opare-Ansah had 50 votes and Ramseyer Agyemang-Prempeh polled eight votes.

Another contender, Charles Bissue, who pulled out of the race a few days to the conference, got 12 votes.

Disunity

Mr Agyapong said the action of the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the party, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, to whip all the regional chairmen to support the candidature of Mr Boadu could cause disunity in the party.

“Wontumi should cool down; he does not own the party,” he stated.

Mr Agyapong said he had learnt his lesson that the disunity in the “party stems from the fact that leaders of the party openly support candidates. This time, I decided that to get unity in the party, I am not going to openly support anybody.”

Winners

He said delegates would always vote for any candidate they believed was good.

“If you are good and the people believe in your work, they will vote for you. But for the first time in the history of the NPP as a political party, you see 15 regional chairmen raising their hands because they have been whipped. They have been disgraced. That is all I can tell you,” he stated.

He said that action by the 15 regional chairmen, led by Chairman Wontumi, ahead of the party's national delegates conference smacked of bad faith in the party.