Five regions have so far petitioned the National Council of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to ask the party’s National Chairman and General Secretary to step aside.
On Monday, meetings were held simultaneously in all regions to decide the fate of Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyepong.
[contextly_sidebar id=”OFc1ne6vlxJSMTsi1t12NsnkcmMfIJIs”]The meetings were necessitated by the increasing calls on the two leaders to resign following the murder of the party’s Upper East Regional Chairman, Adam Mahama.
The five regions which have reached a decision include Central, Eastern, Greater Accra, Western and Volta.
Western Region
The Western Regional Secretary of the NPP, Charles Bissue on the Citi Breakfast Show said the executives in the region unanimously voted on Monday and have petitioned the National Council.
He said they are expecting the National Council to impress upon Paul Afoko and Kwabena Agyepong to step aside and allow sanity to prevail in the party.
“We hope to hear from them as soon as possible. I think the National Council will meet by the close of the week – that is what I’ve heard and the decision will be made.”
Explaining their decision, Mr. Bissue said: “We are basically petitioning them [National Council] to say we have no confidence in them to carry out the activities of the party as Chairman and General Secretary due to the current happenings in the party.”
“People have besieged the party headquarters and are not allowing them [Afoko and Agyepong] to go into their offices to work and previously, there’s been similar incidents as well so based on that, we do not have the confidence that they will be able to carry out their duties,” he stated.
Eastern Region
The Eastern Regional Secretary of the NPP, Prince Aboagye said the executives met on Monday to deliberate on the rising tensions within the party following the death of Adam Mahama.
He remarked that ever since the national leadership assumed office, “things haven’t been going on in conformity with the objectives of the party.”
“So the essence of the meeting was to suggest to the leadership if the two [Afoko and Agyepong] could probably step aside for other procedural things of the party to proceed so that we achieve our main objective of winning the election.”
He said aside petitioning the National Council, the Eastern Region is expecting that Afoko and Agyepong “out of good will,” will step aside for peace to prevail.
Mr. Aboagye indicated that the decision to petition the National Council was unanimous.
Central Region
The Central Regional branch of the NPP has also petitioned the National Council to ask Afoko and Agyepong to step aside.
The Regional Youth Organizer, Percy Dennis on the Citi Breakfast Show said the decision was unanimous and it was based on a number of factors.
According to Dennis, the National Chairman and General Secretary have been unable to call steering committee meetings, they take decisions without consulting other executives, and also they blatantly disregard for party structures when they visit other regions for meetings.
Dennis disclosed that recently, Afoko and Agyepong visited the Central Region but they refused to call the Regional Chairman to inform him of their impending visit.
“They couldn’t even call the regional chairman to tell him that they are coming to the region. They had to direct the Director of administration, Mr. Tetteh and even so, they had made arrangements themselves in the region without the regional officers.”
“We can’t run this party like that,” he fumed.
Greater Accra Region
The Greater Accra Region however met on Sunday and also took a unanimous decision to ask the two national leaders to step aside.
The Greater Accra Regional chairman, Ishmael Ayittey observed that ever since the party elected the current national executives, “the party has not known peace so looking at things and seeing what is happening, we feel the General Secretary and National Chairman should step aside for us to reorganize the party.”
Mr. Ayittey mentioned that during the meeting, some persons opposed the idea but as the meeting progressed, “everybody was on board and it was a unanimous decision.”
“We are appealing to the National Council, the Council of Elders and the National Executive Committee to prevail on them [Afoko and Agyepong] to step down.”
They are also collecting signatures from party executives who went to Tamale to elect the national officers.
He however served notice that if this process they started does not yield the needed results, then we will consider the option of an impeachment which in actual fact, we have not started yet.”
Volta Region
The Volta Regional Secretary, Joseph Homenya denied reports that party executives in the region have endorsed a plan to remove the party’s General Secretary and National Chairman.
He clarified that the executives only asked the two to voluntarily step aside until investigations into the death of the Upper East Regional Chairman, Adam Mahama ends.
“I must put on record that Volta Region has not passed a vote of no confidence in our executives… What happened yesterday is that we met at the Regional Executive Committee and in that meeting, we discussed the current happenings in the party and majority were of the view that considering what has happened in Upper East and subsequently the death of Adam Mahama, the Committee should appeal to the two gentlemen …through the Council of Elders and the National Council, to step aside for an investigation to be carried out quickly,” he said.
Mr. Homenya believes Afoko and Agyepong’s decision to step aside will calm nerves and reinforce the peace in the party.
“We are not inviting them for anything but I think that there has been continuous misunderstanding where the youth have besieged the party headquarters…we believe strongly in the rule of law and we know that a multitude of suspicions does not constitute an evidence so we are not indicting them for anything but for the peace of the party we are appealing to them to step aside.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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