Kwadwo Mpiani, former Chief of Staff under the John Agyekum Kufuor led-Government, cautioned the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) to as a matter of urgency, suspend the ongoing ‘Thank You Tour’, which he says has become messy, divisive and counter-productive.
He said the focus of the party now should be to work to correct the wrongs detected by the Mike Oquaye Committee tasked to do a postmortem of the party’s 2024 electoral defeat but not to embark on a tour that has generated controversy and sparked internal quarrels demonstrated in the full glare of the media.
The tour is for the party’s 2024 presidential candidate, former Vice President Dr Mahamadu Bawumia to visit party faithful across the country and to show verbal appreciation for their votes during the recent general elections and support for the campaign. The Vice President has been coving round in the company of the National Executive and some of the flag-bearer contenders.
“What is happening is not good for the party. They should get back indoors and find a way out of this mess”, Kwadwo Mpiani told Joy News when he was asked about his thoughts on the tour and matters arising.
The former Chief of Staff explained his reasons for calling for a suspension of the said tour:
“We have done so miserably in this election and we have put out a committee to go round the country to find out what happened. I believe the first thing we have to do is that after looking for the reasons for this sorry stage of the party, you don’t go out to say you are going to thank them. The first thing to do is to find out what happened. And then within the party, ask yourself how are we going to tackle these problems which these Oquaye Committee must have informed the party.
“If you are not tackling this and you decide to go out to thank the party, thank you tour, thank you for what? Thanking your members for not voting for you? If you take Ashanti Region for example, you got just about 54 percent or so when previously you were getting a minimum of 70 percent. So what are you going to thank them for? I think the whole priority is misplaced.”
Kwadwo Mpiani continued: “I believe even if you want to show appreciation or whatever you want to call it, they should take a study of the Oquaye report and go back to the people and tell them what happened and we believe this is our problems and how to solve it. That would be a better use of your time than to say you are going on a tour to say thank you.
“What is happening at this thank you? It looks like a sort of showcasing some future presidential candidate and what has been the outcome? We are seeing quarrels over there. Is that what we want to tell Ghanaians that the party has gotten into? I believe the whole thing is priority misplaced.
“If that is their intention then that is wrong. I saw some sort of quarrel between Kennedy Agyapong and the Bono Regional Chairman of the party. Do you want to bring the party together or you want to tell Ghanaians this is what is going on in the party? What do you want to achieve? Bringing the party together or telling Ghanaians that the party is so divided.”
Kwadwo Mpiani did not take kindly to remarks made by Dr. Bawumia during the tour that he, the candidate had no prior notice and was therefore surprised that fuel prices got increased with just three days to the polls .
“I am surprised he would come publicly to say those things as he was a very active part of the government and he did not let some of us outside know that this is what was happening otherwise we might have gone maybe to the President to say hey this is what we are being told is happening, Mr. President can you do something about it?” Kwadwo Mpiani noted.
He explained further: “If I were him (Dr. Bawumia), I would not have done what he is doing now. I would have even called a meeting where President Akufo-Addo himself would be there, he leaders of the party, then come out with these things and say these are some of the reasons we did not do well so how do we make sure we do not do these again if we had an opportunity. Let’s discuss. I believe that would have been a better approach than what is being done now.”
The former Chief of Staff however agreed with the school of thought that former President Nana Akufo-Addo cannot escape blame for the party’s 2024 defeat.
This was how Kwadwo Mpiani explained his opinion on the Akufo-Addo matter: “That should be normal. If we agree that the government did not perform well and as head of the government he should take a lot of the blame. What did he say; I remember during the elections he said somewhere that the buck stops with him. Did he not say that? If we had done so well and Ghanaians were praising us, he would have been the one Ghanaians would be praising that the Akufo-Addo administration has do so well that. So if the administration did not do well, he should take the blame for it.
“The party should take a step back. What is happening is not good for the party. They should get back indoors and find a way out of this mess”, Mr. Mpiani noted.
