Why The NPP Must Now Rid Itself Of The Tribal-Supremacists Who Dominate It!

The election by the United States, of its first African-American president, has been followed by yet another stunning and historic first – the astonishing news that the Republican Party, the ideological home of most US conservatives, has elected an African-American as that party’s chairperson.

The fact that an African-American is now the US Republican Party’s chairperson ought to be food for thought for Ghana’s New Patriotic Party (NPP). For, if the NPP is to succeed in returning to power again, it is crucial that the party loosens the iron-grip that today’s narrow-minded tribal-supremacist descendants of the pre-colonial Akan feudal ruling elites (with whom they share a similar worldview) have on it.

It is vital that Ghana’s political equivalent of the white-supremacist Establishment elites that dominate the societies of the West, who control the NPP, shed the absurd notion that somehow Akans are superior to all the other tribes in Ghana – and that they, the arrogant and archetypal beneficiaries of inherited privilege, in turn, are superior to all ordinary Akans: and therefore, a priori, have a divine right to rule Ghana.

That pure-nonsense-on-bamboo-stilts notion was what informed the attempt by the NPP’s desperate Akan tribal-supremacists to rig the rerun of the December 28th presidential election. Those who listened to the infamous tape-recordings played on the Radio Gold FM programme “Election Forensics” will recall Atta Akyea's astonishing statement in Twi: “…saa democracy nonsense yi…” For non-Twi speakers, translated, what he said meant: “…this democracy nonsense…”

(Incidentally, essentially your typical elitist Akan tribal-supremacist does not believe in democracy – and they never have: it being merely a cloak of respectability designed and donned to enable them hide their lust for dictatorial power successfully.)

But I digress. To be successful in future elections, the NPP must become a truly multi-ethnic political party – not just a vehicle that in reality is simply a cloak to hide the secret agenda of the party’s Akan tribal-supremacists: whose desire is to ultimately dominate Ghana permanently by stealth. The fair-minded and non-tribalistic Akans who have some influence in the party ought to work hard to rid their party of the baleful influence of the few powerful Akan tribal-supremacists who now dominate their party so completely.

Clearly, the NPP cannot continue deluding itself that it is still a very popular political party simply because its large army of “My-party-my-tribe-right-or-wrong” myrmidon-types (who wear blinkers permanently and are too thick to think for themselves – and whose blind support for Ghana’s governing political parties encourages much of the corruption and incompetence in our public life), turn up at their “thank-you” rallies in droves.

The truth of the matter, is that to win elections in the Ghana of today, political parties need to take the opinions of the independent-minded and discerning voters, the so-called “floating-voters” (patriots who actually love Ghana and care about its future) into account – because political parties that ignore the invariably sensible opinions of such key voters, do so at their own peril.

Unlike the narrow-minded and blind-multitudes who follow our political parties, the “floating-voter”, when casting his or her vote, takes into account factors such as: the respect politicians have for all of Ghana’s ethnic groups; the competence and integrity of our political leaders; whether or not they are stooges for neocolonialism,  who will collaborate with foreign interests to gang-rape our country – and above all, the effect a ruling regime’s economic policies have on the quality of life of all Ghanaians and the well-being of the Ghanaian nation-state: particularly the preservation of its biodiversity at a time of global climate change.

It is instructive that the defeated presidential candidate of the NPP in the December 2008 election, won in only two of the ten regions of Ghana – and that both were regions in which Akans form overwhelming majorities. As things currently stand, the painful truth is that the NPP, like all the parties that over the years have evolved from the Busia-Danquah political tradition, has become the natural home of Ghana’s equivalent of the Western world’s racist Establishment elites.

On the 19th of October 2007 I wrote an article entitled: “The Disrespect Shown to Alhaji Aliu Mahama.” In it, I made the point that if Alhaji Aliu Mahama had been an Akan, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would have found a way of making him succeed President Kufuor.

Today, true to form, and even at this early stage, there apparently are some members within the party who, in 2009, want Nana Akufo Addo to be proclaimed the NPP’s presidential candidate for the December 2012 presidential election.

If a section of the NPP membership is now minded to make him the party’s presidential candidate again to contest the December 2012 presidential election, the question that needs answering is: Just why did they not save themselves the zillions of old cedis they frittered away, by allowing the former vice-president, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, to succeed President Kufuor in similar fashion for the December 2008 election?

Perhaps there are still some people amongst the Akan elite who dominate the NPP, who also secretly share Dr. J. B. Danquah’s contempt for non-Akans (evidenced by Danquah’s outrageous dismissal of the Convention Peoples Party regime as a government with “veranda boys” and “Ntafuor” in it), for whom  that contempt for non-Akans resonates – in as far as the tribalistic “Ntafuor” bit goes?

In the 21st century ICT age, any Ghanaian politician who thinks that his or her tribe is superior to all Ghana’s other tribes, is a contemptible individual – and completely unworthy of leading Nkrumah’s Ghana. Such divisive politicians are unlikely to be voted into power in the Ghana of today – particularly after the divisive and tribalistic “Kokofu-football” politricks of the Kufuor regime

The time has now come for the progeny of the Akan pre-colonial feudal ruling elites (for whom the parties that evolved out of the Busia-Danquah tradition over the years, have always been mere vehicles to enable them ascend political power and dominate Ghana) to stop deluding themselves that they have a divine right to rule Ghana – for they do not.

No tribe can ever successfully dominate Ghana – and the sooner the few powerful Akan tribal-supremacists (who have had such an iron-grip on the NPP) understand that and begin to genuinely respect all the other tribes in Ghana as equals, the better will it be for them politically.

If they maintain their attavistic worldview, they will never be allowed by Ghana’s patriots, to rule our nation again.

Incidentally, when they were in power, those selfsame NPP Akan tribal-supremacists, loathed Ghanaian media professionals who criticized them for patriotic reasons, and did all they could to subtly repress critical voices – and thus ignored whatever little wisdom was contained in those criticisms.

One hopes that having lost power because they were hard of hearing, they will now listen to those who criticize them constructively during their years in the political wilderness, going forward into the future.

It is important that the NPP understands clearly that the Ghana of today is not a nation that unprincipled and self-seeking individuals who neither believe in the rule of law nor the concept of constitutional democracy can take for a ride. Politicians masquerading as individuals committed to constitutional democracy (but who in reality are not) have no future in this country.

The NPP has no option but to change if it wants to be returned to power again – and to do so it must force those powerful Akan tribal-supremacist members who dominate it to shed their secret tribal-supremacist agenda.

Above all, the NPP must never allow itself to be dominated by the kind of dishonest and unprincipled men and women (driven by such unfathomable greed) who constituted the powerful cabal that operated in the presidency during the tenure of the Kufuor administration. A word to the wise...