-NPP shamelessly maltreated Aliu Mahama

By A A Yayra If you have ever doubted the miasma of tribalism, which has enveloped the New Patriotic Party since its formation, then you should be interested in watching the unfolding events in the elephant party with incredulity and an increasing sense of exasperation on how the Editor-in -Chief of the Accra Mail, Alhaji Abdul Haruna Atta “lectures” on the extreme disdain and disrespect that the NPP shows to Northerners.

In what could possibly pass as an existential threat to the unity of the country, Alhaji Haruna Atta, who is also a leading member of the biggest opposition party opened up a new chapter on how a malevolent clique of powerful oligarchs, who now dominate the NPP completely, scruffily treated Ghana’s immediate late vice president, Alhaji Aliu Mahama.

Speaking on Metro TV’s current affairs program, ‘Good Evening Ghana,’ hosted by Paul Adom Otchere recently, the straight-forward veteran journalist noted that, one of the most shocking scandals in Ghana’s political history was the deafening silence in the media and elsewhere in Ghana, about the apparent and shameful mistreatment the late Aliu Mahama suffered at the hands of ex-President Kufour and the NPP.

According to the astute media practitioner, he decided to vote for President John Mahama the National Democratic Congress presidential candidate in the just ended elections not because he detests NPP’s Nana Akufo Addo, but because of what he refers to as “the NPP’s Akanistic posturing.’

Citing several dehumanizing treatments meted out to the late former Vice-President, Aliu Mahama to buttress his point in a follow-up interview with this paper, Alhaji Haruna Atta said, at one point, the late Alhaji Aliu sorrowfully retorted; “Olie (Haruna), what is it that I have done to President Kufuor to merit these treatments”

“As a result of this and other reasons, I had a problem with the NPP; their hypocrisy is beyond measure…that was why I even voted for President Mahama in the December 7 election… It is an anti-Islamic agenda. I’m a Muslim and they can do same to me one day”.

The veteran journalist told the The Al-Hajj that “in virtually every democracy in the world, there is a convention, that nations’ sitting vice presidents are expected to succeed the incumbent presidents, and run in the subsequent national election to choose their successors…but what did the tribal supremacists in the NPP do? Because the late Aliu Mahama was a Northerner, who in the scheme of things, ought to be the second most important figure in the NPP, they by-passed him as if he was a nonentity, to elect a different person as their flag bearer in 2007. Would they have allowed anyone in the party to attempt to mount a challenge to a sitting vice-president, if he hailed from a different part of Ghana?” he quizzed.

In the view of Alhaji Haruna Atta “if the then vice-president was healthy and of sound mind, why did the NPP not make sure he succeeded ex-president Kufuor? This is something that should provide food for thought.”

According to Alhaji Haruna Atta, he was part of those who convinced the late Aliu Mahama to take up the position of running mate of the NPP when candidate Kufuor offered him. “I was instrumental in bringing Alhaji Aliu to accept nomination as running mate to Kufuor….initially he was not happy with the idea, but I told him “don’t gamble with your destiny... I even crafted his acceptance speech delivered at Ho in 2000, where he said, ‘I am proud being a Savanna boy partnering a forest belt man (JAK) and a Coastal person (Odoi Sykes, NPP chair) and I accept it in all humility’... Aliu came into politics with clear conscience…He once told me he didn’t come to sabotage his boss”.

In a sad mood, the Accra Mail Managing Editor stated “I will say it today, a good man has been maltreated by the NPP, I am confessing today, after all he is gone… it was unfair, it’s a shame, it’s a shame…” Alhaji Haruna Atta could not fathom how after shamelessly maltreating the late vice president when he was alive, NPP stalwarts confidently espouse how committed, hardworking and remarkable he was while serving as the Veep to former President Kuffour, who also appreciated the diligent service exhibited by him, but had to betray him to support another candidate in the party’s 2007 flag bearer-ship contest.