As the New patriotic Party (NPP) continues to bury its head in the sand about the seismic factionalism that is tearing it apart, a fresh symptom of the Akufo-Addo-Alan friction has hit shore.
Perry Okudzeto, former Deputy Communications Director of the party and a known Akufo-Addo man, last week left the party post with resentment for the party�s new Chairman and General Secretary.
Following his summary dismissal by Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyapong, Mr. Okudzeto insinuated to Joy FM, an Accra based radio station, that his removal would have future repercussion.
He is reported to have said that he was not worried about his removal but that in future, things will be done right.
�I was stunned by the proceed-on-leave style of dismissal; he told the radio station.
From available information, the Akufo-Addo man was bundled out of his post after National Chairman, Paul Afoko; General Secretary, Kwabena Agyapong, and the Acting Director of Finance and Administration button-holed him in the party office and peppered him with questions.
It is not clear what the line of questioning was but it is believed to be on actions that Perry Okudzeto had taken that are openly suggestive of his support for Akufo-Addo.
The style of his removal is akin to the dismissal of former Director of Finance and Administration, Opare Hammond, who was sacked in June, this year.
It also comes just two months after old security men at the party�s headquarters in Asylum Down were replaced by new ones without notice.
As both Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyapong are party people rooted in the Ashanti bloc within the NPP, the sacking of Perry Okudzeto, who is known to gravitate towards Akufo-Addo and the Akyem faction of the party, has only served to rehash the deep factionalism in the NPP.
'Myjoyonline' reports pollster and editor of the Daily Dispatch, Ben Ephson, as saying that �if anybody ever doubted there was a crack in the NPP, what is happening now is the evidence of that crack.�
The Akufo-Addo faction of the party has long been largely made up of people of his Akyem ethnicity.
But a few non-Akyems like Perry Okudzeto and former General Secretary, Kwadwo Owusu-Afriyie, have also been openly collusive in an ambition to make Akufo-Addo President at all cost.
Before he would be voted out of office as General Secretary, Mr. Owusu-Afriyie, alias Sir John, even publicly declared Akufo-Addo as the de facto flagbearer of the NPP for the 2016 election.
Indeed, the immediate past national executive that was led by Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey and General Secretary, Sir John, had skewed party loyalty into hero-worship for Akufo-Addo.
Consequently, the party�s administrators, including even security men at the party headquarters� gate were made up of Akufo-Addo worshipers.
But the hero-worship era started ending with the recent election of Paul Afoko, as Chairman.
Being a strong Alan Kyerematen loyalist who was actually beaten in 2012 at the NPP�s congress at Legon by Akufo-Addo supporters for allegedly sharing money to delegates on behalf of Mr. Kyerematen, Mr. Afoko has so far attempted to rid the party administration of some old faces.
A few days after he was elected Chairman, alongside Kwabena Agyapong, who is a former spokesman for former President Kufuor, father of the Ashanti faction of the NPP, as General Secretary, Paul Afoko, sacked then Director of Finance and Administration, Pare Hammond, in June, this year.
Even though, according to Opare Hammond, only the party�s National Executive Committee could relieve him of his duty, Paul Afoko had insisted on the sack.
Obviously, Opare Hammond had been a part of the Obetsebi-Lamptey administration which had twisted party loyalty into hero-worship for Akufo-Addo and therefore was not to be trusted in the new scheme, which is to return the soul of the party into Ashanti hands.
Soon Kwabena Agyapong also replaced the security men at the party�s headquarters with new people without informing anybody, not even the party�s First Vice Chairman, Freddy Blay.
While all this was going on at the party headquarters, Alan Kyerematan was intensifying campaign to convince delegates to shoo away Akufo-Addo in the party�s forthcoming congress.
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