CPP In Disarray

Members of the Central Committee of the Convention People's Party (CPP) who took the decision to nullify the Ellembelle Constituency primary have started challenging the decision as Malik Kweku Baako, an ace journalist of CPP descent, has publicly announced that he would not vote for the party's flag-bearer during the December polls.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for Evalue-Gwira, Kojo Armah, has noted that he was at the Central Committee (CC) meeting when the manipulated decision was taken on the Ellembelle primary but the press statement that was put out by the party's General Secretary, Ivor Greenstreet, was not what he was asked to put out.

Mr. Armah, speaking on Joy Fm last Saturday, said the Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee that was tasked to investigate what Freddie Blay, the Ellembelle MP was reported to have said at an NPP rally, completely exonerated the MP when he told the committee that he found nothing untoward about what Mr. Blay had said.

“The Chairman of the Disciplinary Committee very rightly said that having they themselves listened to the tape and watched the clip of whatever happened at Ayinasi, and having got a very competent Nzema man to do the translation, they were convinced that nothing untoward was said by him (Freddie Blay).

“The matter before the Disciplinary Committee was what he (Blay) had said at Ayinasi and the Committee had come out to say that there was nothing untoward from his speech that amounts to endorsing Nana Addo.

“But they were just concerned about why he should be there and why he was even there and more so, not in his party paraphernalia; these things for me are not substantial,” Kojo Armah added.

He further noted that the Central Committee did not call for a nullification of the primary as contained in Greenstreet's statement, but rather called for a suspension of the primary till otherwise stated.

“It is a major problem that we have created as far as party management is concerned…the Central Committee was very exact in its words after going through several corrections that the elections had been suspended until otherwise decided; so I asked the question: by whom? and the answer was: by the Central Committee,” Kojo Armah noted.

Speaking on the same programme, Mr. Baako, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of the Crusading Guide, though a son of the late Kofi Baako who served as Minister of Information and Minister of Defense under the CPP government, said that he remains a member of the CPP but as a matter of conviction, would not vote for the presidential candidate of his party.

Mr. Baako added: “One member says it had been suspended and another member says it had been nullified. What kind of confusion is this?

“You are trying to do one thing on which a decision had been taken and even in tackling that perceived misbehavior, you yourselves are displaying some lack of consistency and lack of substantive leadership and direction.

Through the process, you are messing up the party's image and contributing to the confusion.”

He continued: “Before they gave that decision that the primary had been nullified, did they even know what he did and the basis on which they are taking there decision?

“I have heard from very reliable source and from people who were at the meeting that what they decided on was a suspension and even that, I do not understand what they mean by a suspension.

“Those who conducted the primary are saying that everything is okay.

The Regional is saying that they have a right to do so; the constituency executive is saying that they have the right to do so and they have not violated anything?” Kweku Baako quipped.

By Halifax Ansah-Addo