The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Aseidu Nketia, made mockery of the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwabena Agyapong, when the former remarked that his counterpart in the NPP was a leader of nine out of the ten regions of Ghana.
Addressing a rally attended by President John Mahama, ministers of state and government appointees that rounded up the campaign of the NDC at Tongo in the run-up to last Tuesday’s by-election in the Talensi Constituency, Mr. Aseidu said he had gone to the constituency to engage Mr. Agyapong in a battle of ideas campaign, but to his amazement, his opponent did not show up.
The NPP scribe and the National Chairman, Mr. Paul Afoko, were conspicuously missing during the entire period of the by-election campaign, that saw gurus of their party, including the 2016 flagbearer, Nana Ado Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and his running mate, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia, crisscrossing the constituency to seek the mandate of the electorate for their parliamentary candidate.
Other bigwigs, who tracked the length and breadth of the Talensi Constituency during the campaign period, included presidential hopeful John Alan Kyerematen, former General Secretary John Owusu Afriyie, 1st Vice Chairman Freddie Blay, National Organiser John Boadu, and others.
The absence of the two top national executives has rekindled the issue about the level of party unity in the NPP, and whether this could be addressed before the 2016 general elections.
It would be recalled that in the fallout from the acid attack on the Upper East Regional Chairman, Mr. Adams Mahama Akabila, on May 20, 2015, which cost him his life, the next day, some NPP youth in Bolgatanga accused Afoko and Agyapong of fueling the attack.
They subsequently issued a firm warning they did not want to see the two at the funeral of the late Regional Chairman, and afterward in the region, or else they would kill them. In order not to incur the wrath of the youth, the two stayed away.
And so when Mr. Aseidu mounted the dais to address the rally, he mocked Mr. Agyapong, describing him as a leader for nine regions, excluding the Upper East, for fear of his life.
According him, because monkeys play by sizes, and Mr. Agyapong was not there, he did not have his size to play with – meaning he did not have a match to battle him in the field of campaign. This, he contended, did not challenge him to have released all his campaign arsenal.
He further said, even if the NPP scribe had come to Tongo to campaign, he could not have had any message to deliver, because the NPP had nothing again to offer Ghanaians, after they failed to run the country well in their eight years of governance.
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