Opinions of Saturday, 30 April 2016

Columnist: Kobri, Kwame

The 'Godhead' of NPP rests on Chairman Wontumi

Yesterday, one of my numerous postings on Facebook attracted a comment that sort to suggest that the thoughts and deeds of Nana Akufo Addo represent that of the New Patriotic Party and that the stance of Nana Addo supersedes that of every other member of the party.

I found the comment rather disturbing and suspected it was ill-informed. So, I grabbed my copy of the party's constitution to find out what it had to say on the subject. I detected that the constitution is rather conspicuously silent on the role of a flag bearer, but instead The Constitution of the NPP positioned the party's Duly Elected Chairman, Paul Awentami Afoko, ahead of any other personality in the party.

These are the pieces of wisdom, I discovered during my search; within the constitution of our party, anyone can subject them to scrutiny, and these are the roles and functions of an elected chairman. The National Chairperson shall be the convener of all meetings including:

1. The National Delegates Conference [That is the highest decision-making body in our party
2. The National Council.
3. The Executive Committee.
4. The Steering Committee of the National Executive Committee.
5. Make sure the party files a presidential candidate and parliamentary candidates for general elections.

Now, the constitution is clear on the function and role of a presidential candidate -The constitution of our party enjoins the party to elect its National Chairman at the National Delegates Conference, which is the HIGHEST DECISION MAKING BODY OF THE PARTY. Whiles the flagbearer is elected at the National delegates, Congress convened by the National Chairman of the Party our constitution on the roles of the flagbearer stipulates that- The Presidential candidate/ flagbearer only oversees/ masterminds the Presidential campaign.

To add on to WHO IS THE LEADER OF NPP. . There is a very coherent reason why framers of our constitution specified in the letter of the Constitution that THE PARTY GO AND ELECT THE NATIONAL CHAIRMAN and all other party executives before the party elects the flagbearer on a later date supervised by the National Chairman elected and all other party executives.

Therefore, by extrapolating the above findings in our constitution, the role of the Chairman is to manage the flag bearer, the committees, and the PCs. So, In effect, Paul Afoko tops the Organogram when it comes to how day-to-day operations of the party are structured.