Sekou Nkrumah and Prof. Agyeman Badu Akosa
The internal bickering in the Convention People’s Party (CPP) is getting dirtier as the controversial son of Ghana’s first President, Sekou Nkrumah, believes Professor Agyemang Badu Akosa, a failed presidential hopeful of the party, is the brain behind the current confusion in the party.
Sekou claims Prof Akosa, who was a strong supporter of Samia Yaba Nkrumah at the Accra International Trade Fair Centre’s CPP conference that elected her as the first woman chairperson of the party, and other members of the CPP are those who have been manipulating Samia to ruffle the hope and ambition of Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, in running for the position of the party’s flag-bearer.
Samia recently had a cause to threaten to expel Dr Nduom, the 2008 presidential candidate of the CPP, from the party if he did not put an end to what she described as ‘nonsense.
Nduom’s supporters were calling for early congress to elect a flagbearer for the 2012 general elections.
The party has subsequently succumbed to the demands with congress fixed for the first quarter of 2012.
Sekou told Citi FM: “I had information that it is people like Prof. Akosa that are influencing Samia to go in that direction and downplay Dr. Nduom’s contribution.”
Sekou threatened to expose Prof. Akosa’s misdeeds if he continued to attack he (Sekou’s) personality as he had sought to do.
It comes in the wake of calls by Akosa for Sekou to stop attacking his sister’s political career and his description of the latter’s allegation as ‘total nonsense.’
Prof Akosa could not fathom why Sekou, who recently promised to campaign and vote for the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, in the 2012 elections, would underestimate his sister’s intelligence by saying that her political ‘immaturity’ was being exploited by anti-Nduom elements in the CPP, including himself, for their selfish gains.
But an obviously enraged Sekou warned the former head of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) that “he is a politician and a public figure and he should watch the way he tries to criticize people” since, according to him, “…when you live in glass house you don’t throw stones but I think if you live in a boys’ quarters you don’t throw stones, I think he understands exactly what I am talking about and I am talking directly to him.”
In a sharp and swift rebuttal, Prof. Akosa, who spoke on the same network, noted that “every time Sekou opens his mouth, it is an attack on his sister” and urged him to leave Samia alone.
He wondered why people misconstrued Samia as a soft personality who could be easily pushed around, noting that “when I heard what Sekou said, the only comment that I want to say is that if he is a politician, he should address what he can do for himself.”
In spite of the attacks on Samia, Akosa believed she possessed the strength and willpower to rise to the occasion and shame her critics, saying, “How she spoke at the conference shows that Samia is made of sterner stuff and as far as I am concerned, we have got a chairperson of that we should all respect.”
Samia, in an angry mood, had attacked the credibility of Dr Nduom for allegedly fanning the current crisis in the party, warning that the CPP would not hesitate to expel the 2008 presidential candidate from the party.
“We will not tolerate this nonsense any more. Enough is enough,” she told Dr Nduom in a radio interview.
She said CPP would be better off without Nduom.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu