A founder-member of the main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, in a riposte, says he will not be gagged by the Party’s Acting Communications Director.
Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe’s rebuttal is in connection with a statement issued by Mr Perry Okudzeto in which he said the former Ambassador’s Akan-bias accusation against the party’s vetting committee was flawed and also exposed his ignorance about the party’s Constitution.
Dr Tamakloe, in a statement issues Wednesday, said: “I treat with contempt the pathetic but sinister attempt by Perry Okudzeto to use the NPP’s constitution to gag me.”
He said: “Some of us who contributed to the founding of the party are not timorous souls and will not sit by unconcerned if there are things to be corrected.”
According to him, “the duties of NPP members spelt in the party’s constitution are not communist party-type gag[gin] provisions”.
“I interpret those provisions in article D of the NPP constitution as among other things, mandating every member to be vigilant in ensuring that the party’s values are observed at all times”, he explained.
Buttressing his ethnic-bias concerns further, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe said: “If the leadership of the party’s five standing committees are predominantly Akan, does he [Okudzeto] not see an issue with that?”
He wondered: “How can he in all good conscience attack the factuality of my concerns?”
“Where was he when senior party figures engaged in ethnocentric discourse that brought the party into disrepute before the 2012 elections? I don’t know about him but I worked in the trenches in Greater Accra where such pronouncements caused great disaffection to the party. Where was he was when senior party members were unduly vilified in the heat of the 2012 election. Was there no disciplinary system then?”
In his opinion, Mr Okudzeto’s attempt at defending the composition of the vetting committee “exposes the fact that there is a systematic issue of ethnic skewing in our party leadership that has to be tackled boldly”.
He also warned Mr Okudzeto against creating a wedge between the party and the media by attacking media houses that published his[Nyaho-Tamakloe’s] concerns.
“The NPP traditionally had a constructive relationship with the media and Okudzeto should not use his stint as acting director of communications to jeopardise the relationship by attacking the Daily Graphic for merely reporting on my comments”.