Broadcast journalist, lecturer and author Abdul Hayi Moomen has argued that former New Patriotic Party (NPP) National Chairman Paul Awentami Afoko is the candidate best positioned to unite the party and help it move beyond some of the deepest divisions in its recent history.
In an opinion piece circulating ahead of the NPP’s National Chairmanship election, Mr Moomen contends that delegates should look beyond the credentials and political résumés of the various contenders and focus on the candidate capable of healing the party’s internal wounds.
For him, that candidate is Afoko.
Mr Moomen argues that Afoko’s turbulent history with the NPP gives him a unique perspective on the consequences of internal divisions and makes his return to the party’s leadership particularly significant.
“Afoko represents an opportunity for the NPP to close an old chapter,” he writes.
According to him, Afoko’s return to a senior leadership position could provide the party with an opportunity to demonstrate that it is capable of reconciliation and healing after years of internal tensions.
He suggests that before the NPP can convincingly ask Ghanaians to entrust it with political power again, the party must first demonstrate its ability to resolve its own internal fractures.
A history of rejection and restraint
Mr Moomen points to Afoko’s rise to the National Chairmanship and his subsequent removal during one of the most turbulent periods in the party’s recent history.
However, he argues that Afoko’s conduct after his removal is an important part of the case for his candidacy.
Rather than openly attacking the party or working against it from outside, Mr Moomen notes that Afoko remained within the NPP and largely kept his counsel.
He describes that decision as evidence of maturity and restraint, arguing that Afoko’s experience of both occupying the highest levels of party leadership and subsequently being rejected by the same organisation gives him an unusual understanding of the human and political cost of factionalism.
Mr Moomen believes this experience could position Afoko to lead a broader reconciliation effort capable of bringing together both influential figures and party members who may have felt sidelined over the years.
‘Northern’ argument challenged
The journalist also takes issue with an argument reportedly being advanced by some delegates that the NPP’s National Chairman should not come from northern Ghana because the party’s presidential candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, is also from the northern part of the country.
Mr Moomen dismisses the argument, describing it as too simplistic to serve as a basis for determining who should lead the party.
He points out that northern Ghana is made up of several distinct ethnic groups and should not be treated as a single ethnic constituency.
He further argues that the NPP’s own history does not support the idea that having a presidential candidate and National Chairman from the same broad geographical zone is inherently problematic.
According to him, for much of the party’s history before 2020, both the presidential candidate and National Chairman were southerners, yet this was not regarded as a structural threat to the party’s internal balance.
The central issue, he maintains, should therefore be competence, reconciliation and the ability to unite the party rather than geographical calculations.
