Politics of Friday, 30 January 2015

Source: Daily Guide

I’m fine with Akufo-Addo - Kwabena Agyepong

General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Kwabena Agyepong, has stated categorically that there is no bad blood between himself and the party’s flagbearer, Nana Akufo- Addo.

He observed that those spreading the false rumours were opponents of the NPP whose only wish and desire was to see the NPP in disarray, urging his party members to treat the rumours with contempt.

According to him, some hidden faces were trying to sow a seed of rancor among the NPP leadership so that the largest opposition political party’s front would break ahead of the next elections.

“Some people want to profit from dividing the NPP as a political party,” Mr. Agyepong, who did not mention names, stated in an interview with Hello Fm in Kumasi.

He therefore admonished the NPP supporters across the country to be careful so that they would not fall into the numerous traps being set for the NPP members, in order to divide the party.

The NPP Chief Scribe insisted that he and Nana Akufo-Addo were enjoying the best of relationships and he was surprised that some people were spreading falsehood that they were at loggerheads.

Mr. Agyepong recounted how he campaigned for Nana Akufo- Addo when the latter contested for the NPP flagbearership in 1998, stressing that he and Nana Akufo-Addo had since that time related to each other in a brotherly manner.

The NPP official disclosed that he recently sat in the same car with Nana Akufo-Addo when they attended a funeral in Accra, stating that rumours of bad blood between the two of them had no basis.

According to him, Nana Addo was his friend years before they both entered into politics, stressing that nobody could use politics to break the bond of friendship between them.

Mr. Agyepong noted that he was elected as NPP General Secretary to work assiduously to ensure that the party’s presidential candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, was elected as Ghana’s president in 2016 “and that is my focus now”.

He said the present NPP executives, including himself, would be seen as a failure if they did not bring the party to power in 2016, noting that all attempts to distract him would not work.

According to him, if Nana Akufo-Addo failed to win the 2016 elections he (Nana Addo) would not be blamed alone, saying, “Nana is the candidate and I am the general secretary.

“With my position, I am supposed to work to ensure victory for our party’s presidential candidate, so if he fails to win, automatically I am a failure too,” Mr. Agyepong pointed out.