A former Member of Parliament for Adentan, Opare Hammond, has said recent disagreements within the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) are to be blamed on the party’s failure to heed the advice of late former chairman Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, regarding the manner of election of executives.

He said Mr Obetsebi Lamptey – who died Sunday March 20, 2016 in London after a short illness – as chairman, had advised the party to break with the convention of electing polling station, constituency, and regional officers before choosing the flagbearer prior to the party’s primaries in 2014.

“One of the main things that he did, which we didn’t listen to and we are paying the price for it now as a party, was the fact that he suggested that our 2014 elections, we should do it the top-down approach. By that he meant instead of the usual way of electing our polling station executives before we go to constituency, regional and national, we should rather have done it the other way: Elect the flagbearer first with the structures as we have it there, and then we elect the MPs, and then the national executives, and it could have followed all the way through,” Mr Hammond told Class FM’s Paa Kwesi Parker-Wilson in an interview Monday March 21, 2015.

“He [Jake] believed that most of the acrimony that characterised our campaigns for those positions could have been avoided. But unfortunately, a lot of people did not see eye to eye with him. He shared the idea with us, who were working very closely with him. We thought through that and we saw that it was good. And, so, we all supported it, including even the regional chairmen, who worked under him.”

Mr Hammond said it was the view of Mr Obetsebi-Lamptey that electing the flagbearer first would have quelled factionalism within the ranks of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo party, as members would have been left with the choice of supporting that one victorious candidate.

The NPP has witnessed serious divisions, with the party believed to be split along pro-Akufo-Addo (its flagbearer) and pro-Kufuor (former president) lines. The divisions have led to the indefinite suspensions of some key executives, including national chairman Paul Afoko, general secretary Kwabena Agyapong, and second vice-chairman Sammy Crabbe, for acts deemed to be sabotage.

Its Upper East Regional Chairman, Adam Mahama, lost his life in an acid attack in May 2015 alleged to have been perpetrated by the brother of Paul Afoko, Gregory.

In November 2015, violence flared up at the Asawase office of the NPP, during which a member of the party, Saddiq Abubakar, believed to be a supporter of Nana Akufo-Addo was stabbed to death by persons believed to be affiliated to Mr Afoko.