Political scientist and prominent New Patriotic Party (NPP) member, Dr. Richard Amoako Baah, has stated that if he were the party’s chairman, he would have expelled former President Akufo-Addo from the NPP.
According to Dr. Amoako Baah, Akufo-Addo cannot be absolved of responsibility for the NPP’s defeat in the 2024 general election.
He claimed that although the truth is widely known within the party, many members are afraid to speak up.
“They are still afraid to speak up. They want to talk about the president, but they are not able to because he is the one who caused the whole defeat. It should be put on his head. He is the person behind this whole thing. He became very unpopular. He became arrogant, you know, and did whatever he wanted — even threatened his own party members, the MPs. Some of them, he actually campaigned against. How does that happen? If I were the chairman, I would have thrown him out of the party,” he said.
Dr. Baah also criticised NPP Chairman, Stephen Ayesu Ntim, for allowing Akufo-Addo to act unchecked, alleging that the former president even went as far as threatening Members of Parliament.
Speaking in an interview on Accra-based TV3, the former head of the Political Science Department at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) alleged that Akufo-Addo still seeks to control the party, despite the defeat.
“No president should be given the power to do such a thing — to campaign against your own party members. Does the party belong to him? But of course, he held all the cards, so he thought he could do whatever he wanted, and this is what brought us to this point.
He hijacked the whole party. After bringing us to this disastrous end, he should have kept quiet, walked away into the sunset, and sat somewhere quietly. But he still wants to control the party,” Dr. Baah fumed.
He further vowed that any attempts by Akufo-Addo to influence the NPP’s future will be fiercely resisted.
“We are not going to agree to that. The party is not his. He still wants to have a say in who becomes the next president. Even when the results came out, Info Analytics made it clear. That alone should have told him to be quiet and leave the party alone.
If you want your party to do well, this is an indication that you have become very unpopular and should step aside. But no, they still want to control everything. It doesn’t work that way. If you were popular, it wouldn’t work that way — and now that you are colossally a failure, we will not agree,” he added.
Dr. Baah also pointed to Akufo-Addo’s refusal to reshuffle his appointees despite public outcry as one of the major factors that contributed to the NPP’s humiliating defeat at the polls.
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