Nyaho-Tamakloe to NPP: Why should you 'throw out' Afoko and replace him with an 'alien'?

A stalwart of the governing New Patriotic Party, Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe has said he still does not understand why the party jettisoned its elected national chairman Paul Afoko in the lead-up to the last general elections and replaced him with an “alien”.

Mr Afoko, along with the party’s then-General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong and then-Second National Vice-Chair Sammy Crabbe were removed from office over suspicions that they were working against the party’s electoral interest.

The current Chairman of the party, Mr Freddie Blay, who was, at the time, the First National Vice-Chair, acted as Chairman until he was elected to be the substantive Chair.

Speaking to Felicity Naana Nelson on Class91.3FM’s Straight Talk on Thursday, 26 March 2020, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe said: “One thing that has disturbed me, personally, till today, was when we elected a National Chairman of our party, in the person of Paul Afoko, years ago in Tamale and then after electing him, we had also a General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong, we had also second National Vice Chairman Sammy Crabbe. These were all elected people, they were not just picked and put there. They were elected by the people, that’s democracy. Then somewhere along the line, all these three people were suspended, the reason to me till this day is not clear. Now, that is something that is very disturbing to me because the party has a constitution, and if they have done something that is that bad, definitely the constitution should be able to see to that, but nothing convincing, so far, has been brought as I talk to you today about why these people were ejected from the party."

He further noted that in the past, people were allowed to share their views and disagree with the leadership of the party but such disagreements never led to persons being sacked from the party.

“In fact, as I speak to you now, I’m supposed to be on suspension but I don’t care about that because nobody can sack me from that party, at least, not those around now. That is what really makes me see the difference between the democracy in the party years back and what we have now. And these days, it appears everybody agrees with what the leader of the party says, no, it wasn’t so in those days. You might have heard of Kwame Pianim, you have to see Kwame Pianim arguing at congress with the leadership of the party, that is what some of us want back. Your argument should not be something that will lead to your being sacked from the party or being suspended from the party."

Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe also added that one of the reasons he fell out with the NPP is intolerance.

“Intolerance is one. Why should the person elected by the people just be thrown out of the party, they should come and give us reasons why Paul Afoko is no longer the national chairman and then you bring in somebody who is a total alien from another tradition to come and be the national chairman,” he bemoaned.

In his view, “The principle on which that political party was put up, that’s the freedom that we have all cried for, so, if our motto really is ‘Development in freedom’, which we don’t have now, to me, personally, we don’t have it now and I have a lot of instances to give why we don’t have that sort of belief that the forefathers of this tradition thought should continue.”

Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe continued: “Let me say, maybe, in the whole country, it appears to me that we’re becoming a bunch of hypocrites. The leadership of the party is quite different from what I’m seeing now and my reason is quite simple: During the time of B.J. Da Rocha, you can have a discussion, there’ll be arguments and whatnot but certain decisions are not taken, decisions that will totally or in future destroy the image of the party or the party itself”.