What Prof. Ocquaye needs to understand about Sammy Crabbe

Following the widely expected dismissal of the lawsuit brought by Mr. Sammy Crabbe against the New Patriotic Party (NPP), by an Accra Human Rights Court, the Chairman of the Legal and Constitutional Committee of the NPP, Prof. Mike Ocquaye, was reported to have told a radio court correspondent in an interview that if the plaintiff expressed remorse and regret, the party’s national executive would be willing to seriously consider reinstating the indefinitely suspended Second Vice-Chairman of the party (See “Say Sorry for Forgiveness – Prof. Ocquaye to Crabbe” Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/2/16).

One wishes that matters were that simple with Mr. Crabbe, who was suspended primarily because he had very publicly and categorically stated that under absolutely no circumstances would he consent to working for the collective interests of the party with the men appointed by the NPP’s National Executive Committee (NEC) to replace the indefinitely suspended National Chairman and General-Secretary of the party.

In other words, the decision to indefinitely suspend Mr. Crabbe as Second Vice-Chairman of the New Patriotic Party was squarely based on Mr. Crabbe’s dastardly attempt to gang up with Messrs. Paul A. Afoko and Kwabena A. Agyepong against the authority and integrity of the members of the party’s National Executive Council (NC) who effected the suspension of these two men.

To fully appreciate the issue at stake here, Prof. Ocquaye and his associates ought to vividly recall the fact that the grievances of Messrs. Afoko, Agyepong and Crabbe emanated from the fact of their preferred choice of candidate for the party’s 2016 flagbearership’s having convincingly lost the party’s presidential primary contest to Nana Akufo-Addo for the third-consecutive time.

Matters were further complicated for these virulent dissenters by the all-too-righteous and principled insistence of Akufo-Addo to retain Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the Oxbridge-educated former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana, as his running-mate, a choice that has been widely applauded both within and without party circles.

Needless to say, the three dissenters and key players at the party’s Kokomlemle headquarters had hoped to advantageously position their prime political steed for a post-Akufo-Addo control and effective domination of party affairs.

Once this thumb-nail apercu of the main gripe of these so-called Big Three is well understood, it becomes crystal clear that the distinguished and highly respected former Dean of the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana has woefully jumped the gun, as it were.

Even more significantly, it ought to be borne in mind the decision by Mr. Crabbe to adamantly and hotly contest and/or appeal the clearly incontrovertible decision by Justice Dennis Adjei to throw out his suit.

Even as veteran journalist Kweku Baako rightly pointed out not quite a while ago, in deciding to brazenly and imperiously defy the New Patriotic Party’s established political culture, as well as the forces in control of the party’s affairs, Messrs. Afoko, Agyepong and Crabbe had both woefully underestimated the heft of the forces they had been contending with as well as grossly misfired.

Hitherto, the trio had been widely alleged to have been playing surrogate for some entrenched party forces who intended to use them to effectively deep-six the presidential ambitions of Nana Akufo-Addo, while also cynically furthering either their own agenda or that of their surrogates. In all likelihood, these internal detractors might have come to the sobering realization that any dastardly attempt to scuttle the presidential ambitions of a very popular and respected Nana Akufo-Addo has the inevitable long-term repercussion of hurting the party’s chances at clinching the presidency in the offing.

For Mr. Crabbe, though, absolutely nothing has changed at the party’s Kokomlemle headquarters. Messrs. Afoko and Agyepong are still out on suspension. And so, really, the climate cannot be said to have become conducive to having Mr. Crabbe restored to his former administrative position as Second Vice-Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, when the man has also already categorically and very publicly declared that he has absolutely no intention, whatsoever, of working hand-in-glove with the likes of Messrs. Freddie Blay, the NPP’s Acting National Chairman, and Mr. John Boadu, who doubles as both the party’s substantive National Organizer and Acting General-Secretary.

Mr. Crabbe has also, ironically, described the members of the NPP’s National Executive Council (NC) as “lawless coup-makers.” And so, really, Mr. Crabbe has effectively thrown himself out of the party, either as an ordinary/general member or a potentially restorable party executive.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs