I have said this before and hereby repeat the same, that Mr. Paul A. Afoko, the suspended National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), does not need any monetary or material kickback from the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to seriously and recklessly undermine the 2016 Akufo-Addo/Bawumia Presidential Campaign (See “I’ve Not Been Bribed to Ruin Akufo-Addo – Afoko” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 2/24/16).

Going into the 2014 NPP Congressional Primary, from which he emerged as the newly elected National Chairman, Mr. Afoko had his own legitimate grudge dating back to the December 2007 NPP Congressional Primary, held on the campus of the nation’s flagship academy, the University of Ghana, during which Mr. Afoko had reportedly had his skull bashed bloody by a fanatical Akufo-Addo partisan (to be certain, a relative) who had alleged that he had discovered Mr. Afoko, then a staunch and passionate Kyerematen partisan, distributing wads of crispy cash to get some committed Akufo-Addo delegates to change their minds by switching their votes to Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen, then widely perceived to be the favorite candidate of the lame-duck President John Agyekum-Kufuor.

Since then, events surrounding Mr. Kufuor’s firing of Mr. Adusei-Poku, his National Security Director, have confirmed some of these hitherto largely speculative beliefs. Back then, and the records could be readily verified, I vehemently condemned the brutal assault on Mr. Afoko and even commended his decision not to file a complaint with the police or launch a protracted lawsuit that could have seriously affected the fortunes of the then-ruling party in the lead-up to Election 2008.

Well, matters do not seem to have been helped when the same Akufo-Addo shill who allegedly caused the Legon campus mayhem, deviously and scandalously attempted to place stumbling blocks in the path of Mr. Afoko, whom I believe is also a former Upper-East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, by concocting some bizarre stories about Mr. Afoko’s having allegedly gotten himself mired on the wrong side of the law while the latter lived in London. Back then, also, I quite vividly remember going to bat for Mr. Afoko who was then running for the national chairmanship of the New Patriotic Party.

I have also noted in the recent past that Mr. Afoko had every right to bear any grudges against his Akufo-Addo partisan detractors, provided that he was not aspiring for or did not intend to aspire for the chairmanship of the New Patriotic Party, because the NPP National Chairman’s position required the holder to be one with poise and equanimity and not one pathologically possessed of vindictive partisanship. Clearly, it is on the latter count that I have my beef with the indefinitely suspended Chairman Afoko. I have already adequately documented some of the reasons why Messrs. Afoko, Agyepong and Crabbe are not a good fit for the 2016 Presidential Campaign of Nana Akufo-Addo and so do not intend to rehash the same here.

The adamant assertion, largely by members of the Kufuor-Kyerematen camp, that the mere congressional election of the three suspended senior party headquarters operatives unquestionably trumps the laid-down, or standing, rules of the NPP bordering on responsible conduct is unarguably preposterous.

This is the line being held by predictable suspects like Messrs. Anane, Mpiani, Wereko-Brobby and Nyaho-Tamakloe. The latter, however, has a cross-partisan agenda that is pathologically tribal, viscerally intransigent and decidedly different from those of the members of the Kufuor-Kyerematen camp.