Any hints of his personality have been so thoroughly absent from any serious discussions of the affairs of the Akufo-Addo-led ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) for so long that it is almost as if the former National Chairman of the latter party, Mr. Paul Awentami Afoko, never existed. Which is all well and good because for the two or so years that he headed the New Patriotic Party, the former Upper-East’s Chairman of the NPP was an unbearable pain for the political fortunes of not only then-Candidate Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, he was also a catastrophe for the development of Ghana at large. He was also a polarizing figure whose success at the helm of the party’s affairs would have ensured the deleterious entrenchment of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), easily the most baleful scourge of Ghana’s socioeconomic and human-resource development (See “Why I Have Not Spoken to Paul Afoko for Years – Freddie Blay Explains” GhanaGuardian.com / Ghanaweb.com 6/11/20).
For the resonant political success of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, we have the immortalized Mr. CK Tedam, recently deceased, to thank in perpetuity. It was the latter’s uncanny ability to rally the leadership of the National Executive Committee (NEC) membership of the New Patriotic Party around the beneficent cause of the then-Candidate Akufo-Addo, the party’s most formidable leader after Mr. John Agyekum-Kufuor, the former President, that auspiciously ensured that the future success of Ghanaian youths, in particular in the critical development areas of education, creative talents and skills training, will not be compromised. And today, even as I write, Mr. Tedam has been more than vindicated by the visionary decision that he took to ensure that Paul Afoko did not become the perpetual albatross around the neck of the fortunes of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo-inspired ideological and political establishment.
Today, Ghana is fast on its way to becoming what it ought to have been or become all along, that is, since its healthy divorce from British colonial imperialism. We are, of course, not totally out of the proverbial woods yet. But even as the old maxim goes, better late than never. Ghana is, once again, the socioeconomic, cultural and political lodestar of Africa, in the memorable words of President Kwame Nkrumah. Paul Afoko is decidedly a goner, in mainstream American parlance, and the sooner we allow the figurative sleeping dogs lie wherever they may be, the better it would be for all peace- and progress-loving Ghanaian citizens. Which is also why I firmly believe that Mr. Freddie Blay, the current National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, would far better off to not even dream of putting any calls through to this politically implacable Akufo-Addo nemesis.
I, however, have absolutely no qualms, whatsoever, if Mr. Afoko, of his own volition, decides to return to the winsome ranks of his former political teammates and associates, but on condition that he will become one of the party’s major problem solvers, and not the sort of peevish monkey wrench that he made of himself at the time of his well-deserved ouster. I would also love to have the Adams Mahama Affair promptly resolved, especially on the legal and judicial side, because there are too many national security snags or “tree stumps” that need to be promptly and thoroughly resolved, including the increasingly apparent assassination of then-President John Evans Atta-Mills, if Ghana is to enjoy the requisite peace and quite that all of its citizens need to forge a productive and worthwhile future.
Our judicial system needs to be promptly and radically reformed. As it stands, presently, Ghana’s judicial system does not command the confidence of most Ghanaian citizens. In short, most Ghanaians go to bed not feeling the least bit at ease that they could wake up the next day and be guaranteed the requisite level of justice, if the need arose at any material moment, including the present. More than anything else, we need to commend Mr. Blay for having valiantly risen to the occasion to building the most formidable and winsome political establishment in the New Patriotic Party, at a time when most of us felt, at best, tentative about this seasoned former rump-Convention People’s Party’s bigwig’s ability and/or genius for doing just that.
But, truth be told, the New Patriotic Party needed somebody like Mr. Afoko and his two equally renowned or infamous, the Dear Reader can choose his/her pick, associates and internal factional hard-hitting anti-Akufo-Addo truckers to give us the sort of challenge that was needed at the time that such challenge was deftly and meticulously rigged up. I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that this challenge very well prepared the staunch backers of the then-Candidate Akufo-Addo to boldly and fiercely battle our way with the sort of ringing and commanding success that we achieved in the 2016 General Election. We, of course, hope to, once again, achieve an even greater success in the upcoming 2020 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
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