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The Problem Is Not David Afoko

Feature Article The Problem Is Not David Afoko
APR 29, 2017 LISTEN

Reports of vehement protests against the nomination of Mr. David Afoko as the District Chief Executive Officer (DCE) of the Builsa-North District of the Upper-East Region are quite understandable but grossly misplaced (See “NPP Youth Reject David Afoko as Builsa-North DCE” DailyGuideAfrica.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/27/17). They are grossly misplaced because President Akufo-Addo has already made it clear since his electioneering campaign tour of the country last year that by the close of 2018, the positions of all Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives will be elective. Those Builsa-North Youth-Wing members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) who viscerally resent the appointment of Mr. Afoko as their DCE will then be able to legitimately use their franchise or ballot to peaceably and harmoniously unseat the man.

For starters, though, there clearly appears to have been some sort of misunderstanding and/or miscommunication between the youthful NPP operatives on the ground, as it were, and the Flagstaff House or the Presidency. We are told that Mr. Afoko is the Builsa-North’s Constituency Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, and has been acting and performing as such for quite a considerable while now. And so when his name did not appear among the list of the names of the two candidates forwarded to the Flagstaff House for consideration and appointment to the administrative position of District Chief Executive, somebody at the Presidency ought to have raised some questions as to why the Builsa-North’s NPP Constituency Chairman’s name had been so conspicuously omitted from the list of qualified DEC candidates.

A forum could then have been opened for the Builsa-North’s Constituency Youth Organizer, Mr. Johnson Achewa and his associates to air or present their grievances. According to the news reports, those members of the NPP’s Youth Wing protesting Mr. Afoko’s appointment claim that the appointee “did not commit himself fully to the 2016 electioneering campaign” of the then-main opposition party. Precisely what this means ought to be deliberated upon and clarified, because it is rather vague and tentative. In other words, what his critics appear to be saying here is that Chairman David Afoko could have been more fully involved in the district’s 2016 electioneering campaign activities than he actually was or had been. And then Mr. Afoko could have been offered ample opportunity to clarify matters or defend himself. It is not too late, however, for the Flagstaff House and the Builsa-North party executives to open up such a dialogical forum.

I also hope that Mr. Afoko is not being gratuitously victimized primarily because he may be related to the embattled Afoko Brothers, namely, Mr. Paul Awentami Afoko, the indefinitely suspended National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, and the latter’s younger brother, Mr. Gregory Afoko, the indicted prime suspect in the brutal acid-dousing assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama, then-substantive Upper-East’s Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party. Mr. Gregory Afoko is presently in custody and standing trial for Mr. Mahama’s murder. He has denied any wrongdoing or participation in the brutal murder of his elder brother’s hitherto bitter political rival. However, his not-guilty plea has been roundly rejected by the prosecution side.

Needless to say, not being “fully committed” is not the same as being decidedly AWOL or totally disengaged from the party’s 2016 electioneering campaign activities. We must not allow Mr. Afoko, and others in a similar situation, to be facilely railroaded by apparently disgruntled party hacks who may be merely using the occasion of his appointment to settle their personal scores.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
April 27, 2017
E-mail: [email protected]

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