Member of Parliament (MP) for Yendi, Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama, has said a statement of Hopeson Adorye, a member of the Communication Team of the New Patriotic Party is a mockery of “our founding ideals.”
He said the founding ideals of the NPP is to build a political grouping of national character that touts the liberty of inclusion at the pinnacle of the party in spite of the circumstances of birth, creed or origin.
Mr Mahama made the remarks in reaction to a statement allegedly made by Mr Adorye that “Northerners and Muslims are only fit for Running Mate positions.”
Mr Adorye has, meanwhile, denied the above statement attributed to him.
Mr Mahama said the Busia-Dombo tradition has thrived on the tenets, endured all the political hostilities and persecutions in the pre and post independent era and has transmogrified into the great NPP today.
“It is in the NPP that the son of a koko seller in the far hinterland of Yendi can rise up to be the running mate of his party and consequently Vice President of his country. That doctrine is what makes our tradition enduring,” he said.
He said: “the least we can do as latter-day adherents is to hold sky-high such ideals and guard them jealously. It is a sectional thought to seem to suggest that the Dombos of our trinity are comfortable and fit for perpetual running mate in our tradition.
“That prognosis in itself is defeatist, retrogressive and squanders the gains we have made over the years to disabuse our political ecosystem of such impression.That’s not the promise our founders toiled for.”
He said in 1996, after the Great Alliance of the NPP and PCP failed to secure electoral victory with then John Agyekum Kufuor and running mate Kow Nkensen Arkah respectively, the best political combination that was proven to be electorally efficient was the Southern-Northern or Northern-Southern configurations.
He said “the NPP succeeded with Mr Kufuor/Alhaji Aliu Mahama ticket and that has since been a permanent feature of not only our party but our friends on the other half of the aisle, perhaps, it would have been fair for him to suggest we use the Northern-Southern configuration too. This is the time for us to annihilate the perception not entrench it.”
The Yendi legislator noted that it was absolutely out of place to proceed, on that backdrop, to submit that some groupings were good to play second fiddle, adding that “such a notion was lethal and withers the growth of inclusion in our party and must be discouraged, more so, to be shepherded by people considered as leaders on their own accord.
“Beyond the argument of the trinity, what should occupy our minds is the capacity, the mass appeal, the political flair, capability and wherewithal to lead us to accomplish the task of annexing a third consecutive term.”