New Patriotic Party presidential hopeful, Kwabena Agyapong, has narrated the events that supposedly led to the removal of the former national chairman of the party, Paul Afoko in 2015. According to him, the genesis of Paul Afoko’s removal was the pressure for an early presidential primaries by some members of the party, including President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who was then one of the flagbearer hopefuls.
Speaking in an interview on Neat FM, on June 14, 2023, Agyapong added that after the issue of the early primaries was resolved, there was some confusion over some monies that had to be sent to the grassroots of the party for the parliamentary primaries, which led to some people calling for Afoko’s suspension. “This was what led to people calling for his suspension. They said he was the one behind someone who was creating confusion about the money. But I said that he had done nothing wrong and that for the chairman of the party to be suspended, it must be for something very drastic. “All of a sudden, there was a petition for his suspension, which was brought by two northerners – his own people.
The petition did not even follow the required route. It was not sent to the party’s headquarters, according to our own rules and regulations, it went straight to the disciplinary committee,” he said in Twi. He added that the committee invited Paul Afoko but he refused their invitation because they had no power to invite him without going through the proper channel.
But the committee went ahead to recommend that he should be suspended as they (the leaders of the party) were about to attend their international conferences aboard. “We finished one of the conferences and I went to visit my wife at Leicester after which I was to meet candidate Akufo-Addo at London so we would travel to Washington.
Then all of a sudden, I was told that there was an emergency executive committee meeting and that the chairman has been suspended indefinitely. “I called Paul and asked him when he authorised the meeting but he also did not know about it. And I said ‘What, a meeting can be conveyed without you (Afoko – the chairman), without the general secretary?’ That is improper, irregular and so it cannot stand,” he said. Kwabena Agyapong, who was the general secretary of the NPP, said that after the news of Afoko’s improper removal, he told Akufo-Addo that he could not continue with him and left him in London.
