Afoko Replies NDC Youth - �NPP Is The True Home Of The North�

Mr. Paul Afoko, a leading contender in the NPP Chairmanship race has said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was the only true national party in the country and there fore was the legitimate home for all Ghanaians Responding to some youth of the National Democratic Congress who asked him to join their party Mr. Afoko said in a radio interview in Tamale that the origins of the NPP is embedded in the true and painful liberation struggles of the founding fathers of the Ghana. He said �the NPP is a conglomeration of all the tribes, faiths and persuasions that the new Ghana represents, adding that this evidenced by the various groups that came together to form the United Party (UP) which is the root of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)�. Recounting the formation of the UP, Mr. Afoko said the Northern Peoples Party (NPP), the National Liberation Movement (NLM), the Islam Party, the Ga Shimokpe, Trans Volta Togoland Party, and the Anlo Youth came together to form the United Party in 1954 in opposition to Kwame Nkrumah�s Convention Peoples Party (CPP The Northern Peoples Party had the largest number of legislators (19) with Mr. S.D. Dombo as its leader but Dombo voluntarily conceded leadership of the UP in Parliament to Dr. K. A. Busia who was with the National Liberation Movement (NLM). Mr. Afoko said the three Northern regions and the Volta region are the natural allies of the NPP because they brought the party into being adding that it is NDC propaganda that stole them away from their natural home and that if made Chairman he will work to reverse it. On the brouhaha over his vetting, Mr. Afoko said he was not worried because he knew that he was innocent and that will be proven sooner than later. �In every party we have such intra-party struggles and what is happening now is not peculiar to the NPP�, he said. �We all recall the �FONKAR GAMES� during NDC�s own congress in Sunyani and the vilification the Rawlingses and several other members of the party suffered from the hands of some National Executives of the NDC�, he added. He said he was aware that the NDC was uncomfortable with him as Chairman of the NPP because they know he will �uproot� them from Government. �I know that they and their security capos have been meeting over me, unfortunately some of our NPP boys are allowing themselves to be used in these diabolic plans but they will not succeed�. Mr. Afoko said in all these, what he detests is the deliberate lies, fabrications and the concoction of stories to destroy others. �At the end of the day this can come back to hurt our party in the general elections.� He concluded.