By Dr. Michael J.K. Bokor

Monday, December 3, 2012

The nauseating “Yen Akanfuo” mentality that undergirds the NPP’s politicking is on display once again. This time, it is happening right within the party’s own ranks, confirming the long-held disdain that those bigwigs in the NPP have for others not of their ethnic extraction.

By their public posturing and unguarded utterances alone, we can tell how they downgrade all others but use them to serve their political interests. They can’t throw dust into anybody’s eyes and they will unmask themselves to be known for what they are. As usual, I won’t mince words in dealing with them.

The Coalition of Northern Youth Groups, an NPP-affiliated pressure group, has called on the National Executive Council of the NPP to immediately suspend Madam Ursula Owusu as a member of the party and unconditionally withdraw her candidature from the Ablekuma West constituency elections.
The convener of the group, Dombe Kwame, called on the NPP flagbearer to “come out and apologize unconditionally to all Northerners.”
According to the group, their stance is informed by comments made by Madam Ursula Owusu on Okay FM on Thursday November 29, 2012, in which she branded all northerners as cattle rearers in an attempt to “justify the NPP’s free SHS policy.”
According to the group, Madam Ursula Owusu said “but for free education, NDC stalwarts like Alhaji Inusah Fuseini will be rearing cattle because that is what uneducated Northerners do.”
Ursula might be singling out an NDC stalwart for that scathing attack, but do you see where the matter has reached to damage the NPP’s own interests? Our Northerners are smart enough to read deeper meanings into such an unconscionable utterance to know that Ursula’s insults were meant for all Northerners. After all, they are the beneficiaries of Nkrumah’s free education policy, and they know how it hurts to be so denigrated.
It seems the real import of Ursula’s scathing insult is not the NDC stalwart alone but all those of Northern Ghana extraction. The emphasis has definitely shifted from the NDC’s opposition to Akufo-Addo’s extravagant promise of free SHS education to an affront on the integrity of Northerners, which is not far from the truth.
And the reaction from this group is apt:
“As Northerners, we fell extremely scandalized and violated by the tribally laced invectives aimed solely at using falsehoods to create the impression that people from the three Northern regions of Ghana are inferior to other tribes in Ghana," the group said in a statement (Ghanaweb, December 3, 2012).
Do you see the true import of the “Yen Akanfuo” mentality on display here? I have said it several times that the real agenda of the NPP is to use the unwitting elements of Northern Ghana extraction for their parochial and selfish political interests and then discard them with little ceremony like pieces of excreta.
These NPP leaders have a concentrated disdain for all “outsiders” yet pretend to be their bed-fellows. They are known for this obnoxious pretentiousness. Unfortunately, the very people being treated with contempt unwittingly buy into their lies and manipulations to do their bidding.
Former Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, provides a clear example of how the “Yen Akanfuo” party treats “outsiders” whom they lure into the murky waters of Ghanaian politics to be exploited and discarded at will.
Aliu wasn’t as popular as others but was ideal for the “Yen Akanfuo” elements’ political agenda. In the NPP fold, he wasn’t even a magnet to attract support to his personal political cause. In effect, then, he was enveloped by a party that highlighted the Danquah-Busia ideology with the “Dombo” aspect tagged on only as an afterthought for political expediency, part of which made Aliu and those non-Akans feel welcome enough to belong there.
They did so at their own risk, working like mules to win hearts for the party and fading off unsung. Aliu Mahama’s stroke attack occurred when he was on the electioneering campaign trail. And he died in the service of the “Yen Akanfuo.”
As we’ve seen in Aliu’s particular case. He was definitely used, abused, and over-used to serve the purposes of those pulling strings in this “Yen Akanfuo” cabal. As a Northerner, he was relied on to herd his kith and kin into the NPP, unable to resist the subtle manipulation.
Aliu wasn’t in the limelight in the Kufuor government even though he was regarded as the Number Two citizen. Many instances revealed to us that he was deliberately being kept in the shadows for reasons best known to those teleguiding the Kufuor administration.
Aliu was consigned to the backwoods and used to serve specific purposes cut out for him. Once he chose to mingle with the political leeches, he couldn’t expect to free himself from their grip. Thus, he stayed on, enduring their disdain and unable to escape their throttling grip.
After all, the “Yen Akanfuo” had found in him a willing tool to use for political leverage among Muslims and Northerners ignorant of their wily negative politicking. So it was that Aliu had no option but to serve the political leeches who praised him for campaigning for their cause to the grave. Unfortunate Aliu.
He wasn’t given the elbow-room to exert his influence on the workings of the NPP and its government. That might explain why he was soundly rejected when he attempted taking over from Kufuor. At the NPP congress that elected the party’s flagbearer for the 2008 polls, we all saw how he was humiliated.
Don’t tell me that the process leading to the choice of the flagbearer was democratic and culminated in voting by the party’s delegates whereupon the preferred candidate emerged. It wasn’t really so because of the underhand manouevres that preceded that voting. We all saw how Kufuor detached himself from Aliu, lending his support to Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen instead. In any case, as a lone ranger among the party of the candidates of Akan extraction, what chance did Aliu stand?
We are asking this question against the background of the NPP’s origin, manner of politicking, and the exercise of power by its bigwigs. When the late Attakora-Gyimah of Nkukuo-Buoho, near Offinso, formed his Danquah-Busia Club (DBC) that was to mature into the NPP, none of those outside the Akan circle were involved. That cell was nurtured by those who are today behind the scene manipulating the NPP’s political course.
Aliu was in the NPP to be used, abused, and overused till death did him part. And that’s what has happened. As Kufuor put it, he “died of a stroke after collapsing on a campaign platform in the Brong-Ahafo Region a few weeks ago.”
He left a trail behind for others like Mahamudu Bawumia to follow. And they are slavishly following it to the admiration of their handlers who are waiting impatiently to laugh all the way to the citadel of power to prosecute their agenda of “property-grabbing democracy” while consigning them to the periphery to be taunted as cattle rearers par excellence.
This is the background against which to view Ursula Owusu’s disdainful comments about Northerners. Certainly, she has revealed the truth and must be acknowledged as helping Northerners know how they stand in the estimation of the very people they are killing themselves working to put in power.
Even before the frog dies, its actual length is already known. That is the NPP for you, Northerners!!
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