The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Council of Elders has clarified that the statement issued on Tuesday was not informed by the outcome of the various regional meetings held to decide the fate of two national officers of the party.
The Council’s spokesperson, Ambassador Baffour Adjei-Bawuah on the Citi Breakfast Show said: “At the time that the Council met, I believe chronologically, you will recognize that maybe, the meetings that you mentioned wouldn’t have taken place so the Council wouldn’t have specifically deliberate on that.”
[contextly_sidebar id=”L6UJECaEN8zKH39H7r2uJopn4RkxKuy8″]The NPP’s Council of Elders in a letter addressed to the National Chairman, Paul Afoko and General Secretary, Kwabena Agyepong asked the two to step down from the respective positions.
The letter came at a time when about eight regions had early on cast a vote of no confidence in the two leaders and subsequently petitioned the National Council to impress on them to step aside.
The decisions were taken at regional meetings held concurrently on Monday.
The Council’s letter to Afoko and Agyepong was then interpreted to mean the elders had endorsed the decision of the various regions.
But Ambassador Adjei-Bawuah said: “The Council put out a statement yesterday…and it further informed the public that the Council’s deliberations identified certain strategies and means of resolving the issues within the party and therefore asking everybody to cooperate. It also said that certain pieces of advise have been communicated.”
He stated that if Afoko or Agyepong have not confirmed or denied receipt of any letter asking them to step aside, he is unable to speak to the content of the purported letter because, “the Council’s deliberations and the Council’s deliberations and the Council’s communication are confidential.”
“Those that are not confidential, we put out like the statement we put out yesterday so I am in no position to confirm the content of whatever it is that was communicated.”
Ambassador Adjei-Bawuah added that all that the Council sought to do was to advise to certain officers in the party following their identification of certain kinds of steps which ought to be taken to resolve their problems.
He remarked that he is certain all the officers in the regions know that the party has a governing document and thus asked them to respect and adhere to the party’s constitution because “this party isn’t a party that was set up yesterday.”
Although Ambassador Adjei-Bawuah refused to indicate whether all Council members were present for the Monday meeting, but he stressed that “it was a full house.”
“The Council is concerned because this is a great party poised to try as much a possible to win an election and take this country up the hill again…so if there are issues in the party considered grave enough, most of the Council members will come so it was a well attended meeting.”
Asked whether ex-President John Kufuor was present at the meeting, Ambassador Adjei-Bawuah indicated that Kufuor “is out of the country at the moment and I am sure if he was there, he would have come.”
We need space to solve our problems
Ambassador Adjei-Bawuah asked the party members, sympathizers, the general public and the media to give the NPP space to resolve its issues.
According to him, the Council is very clear on how to solve the various issues in the party but the first step is for “everybody to exercise restraint, for everybody to stay out away from the mudslinging that is going on in newspapers and on radio because there is no way that you can take good counsel in the midst of pandemonium.”
He insisted that the NPP is a “very unified party, a very strong party…I am a bit sometimes depressed by the fact that people seem to over stretch what they call differences.
“Give us space and we will show you what the NPP is about,” he appealed.
Ambassador Adjei-Bawuah pointed out that the main target for the NPP is that “the Republic is dying; the party ought to get up, put programmes together to save the Republic. That is what the NPP is about.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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