Ghanaian lawyer and a member of the NPP, Atta Akyea
Last night (23rd August 2022) on Good Evening Ghana, we were amazed at the level of pedestrian political analysis, tribal disrespect, and mutilation of the NPP Constitution, constructed by the MP for Abuakwa South Constituency Hon. Samuel Atta Akyea. He has said worse things than Hon Ekow Vincent Assafua and Hopeson Adorye, but it seems our astute General Secretary will let this slide and will only look for laws to intimidate perceived supporters of Alan Kyerematen.
In Hon. Atta Akyea’s wisdom, there should be no election of a flagbearer because he knows his preferred candidate does not stand any chance when pegged with the man ordained by God and the grass-root of the party. He claims that the NPP constitution says we should ‘select’ flagbearer but not elect. Therefore the Vice President should be made an automatic successor to President Akufo-Addo.
That is unfortunately a wrong understanding of the NPP constitution by a lawyer. He has by this conduct disgraced the spirit and the letter of the party’s constitution.
I say this because the NPP constitution has a clearly defined procedure for electing a flagbearer, something a lawyer should know at his fingertips. Article (13)(a) talks about the Election of the Presidential Candidate, not ‘selection’ as used by Lawyer Atta Akyea. Therefore his thinking that we should not have an election but rubber-stamp his candidate is the mark of a coward who is afraid of an election and is seeking every means to prevent an imminent defeat.
He asserted in his presentation that in his view, being a Vice President should merit automatic graduation to become President, but when asked why he did not hold the same ideology when he chose to support Akufo-Addo over Alhaji Aliu Mahama of blessed memory, he quickly hid behind grammar that he doesn’t want to do a postmortem, but we should not spend money to elect a flagbearer, in this opinion, then elections are not worth the cost and hence democracy is needless, perhaps an automatic succession plan should be devised instead of democratically electing a flagbearer. If Atta Akyea were not educated, this would be understandable, but for a lawyer, this chameleon politics is unpardonable.
Hon. Atta Akyea seems to have a personal dislike for Alan Kyerematen, in that, he did not even have the courtesy to elucidate on the things that make Alan exceptional to lead this country but simply thinks he should be made running mate because of all the troubles he has gone through.
But one thing we would love to inform Hon Atta Akyea and his likes is that the reason why the majority of delegates support Alan Kyerematen is that he’s the best person with the keys to transforming Ghana’s economy.
Our population is over 70% youth and most of our people need jobs, we want someone who has the footprint of creating jobs for the people, and we want someone who has an industrial transformation agenda; our choice is well informed by what Ghana needs, not a fake succession plan that exists only in the head of Atta Akyea.
Again another wrong accession made by Hon Atta Akyea is that if the Vice President is made a presidential candidate, then it shows that the NPP has a national appeal, this accession is an affront to Asanteman because it suggests Asantes are not part of the national picture of Ghana. Such an insult should not be poured on the people who voted massively for his brother to become the president of Ghana.
Hon Atta Akyea should know that, aside from the legality of conducting presidential primaries, we should not disenfranchise the party grass-root who will do the heavy lifting at the main elections, their participation in choosing who leads the party enjoins them to actively participate in making sure the person they elect becomes president of Ghana. If a candidate is imposed on the grass-root, then that candidate may as well do his own campaign and the effect will be a humiliating defeat.
Again, he argues that if we go into an election to elect a flagbearer, he will be hated by the rest of the other candidates. This does not hold water, of course after the 2007 election, Atta Akyea’s cabal who won rather antagonized every individual who was not on their side, they sacked elected party executives at all levels for this reason and did the same to MPs and potential MPs, which has made us lose a lot of seats in parliament, therefore claiming that elections in itself will breed antagonism for the winner is quite infantile.
Lawyer Atta Akyea says the history of NPP should change. Even in his law profession which he has trained so many years for, he’s gambling with basic comprehension of law but he wants to turn into a self-styled historian to shape NPP history.
He also claims that if the Vice President is not promoted to president, then, we used and dumped him. This will be the highest mark of ingratitude to the NPP if anyone says that. To start with, the Vice President was never a member of the NPP until he became a running mate and became a vice president, until this time he never paid dues to the NPP, even Nana Addo himself who insisted on him as his running mate appealed to the party leadership at the time that he was choosing Bawumia because he has no future ambition for the high office of president which is the only reason that calmed heads then to offer him such an honour. It is therefore very unfortunate to turn around and say today that he has been used and dumped, a statement which could only seek to divide and not unite.
Since the new General Secretary took office, we have seen him calling people to order and inviting others to face committees for saying less, Hon. Atta Akyea has endorsed the Vice president on National TV, mutilated the constitution of the party, and made sensitive tribal comments which are very disingenuous to the unity of our party…. eyes are watching, your leadership has been tested and your response to this will tell if you are indeed seeking to guard the sanity of the Elephant party or you are only interested in hunting Alan Supporters. Will Justin Kodua be bold to defend the cause of freedom and of right?
Long Live the NPP!!!
Columnist: Orchill Prince David
