The Member of Parliament for Yendi Constituency in the northern region, Hon Farouk Aliu Mahama, has slammed the ethnocentric comments made against the Dombo (Northerners) faction of the New Patriotic Party by Hopeson Adorye, a loyalist of Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kwadwo Kyeremanten.
Mr. Hopeson at a health walk organized by Friends of Alan Kyeremanten in the Ashanti region said Northerners (Dombos) were only fit running mate position in the NPP, giving a chronology of the governing party’s Presidential pairing since the start of the Fourth Republic in 1992.
Reacting to the statement, the Son of late Alhaji Aliu Mahama, former Vice President in the erstwhile John Kufuor administration, stated that the prognosis in itself is defeatist, retrogressive and squanders the gains we have made over the years to disbuse our political ecosystem of such impression. That’s not the promise our founders toiled for.
He added the statement is a mockery of our founding ideals, that is, to build a political grouping of national character that lends, tout de suite, the liberty of inclusion at the pinnacle of the party in spite of the circumstances of your birth, creed, religious suasion or origin.
Read the full statement below
Hon Farouk Aliu Mahama writes….
His statement is a mockery of our founding ideals, that is, to build a political grouping of national character that lends, tout de suite, the liberty of inclusion at the pinnacle of the party in spite of the circumstances of your birth, creed, religious suasion or origin.
The tradition has thrived on these tenets, endured all the political hostilities and persecutions in the pre and post independent era and has transmogrified to our 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.
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 disbuse our political ecosystem of such impression. That’s not the promise our founders toiled for.
In 1996, after the Great Alliance of the NPP and PCP failed to secure us electoral victory with then H.E J.A Kufour and Veep Kow Nkensen Arkah as candidate and running mate respectively, the best political combination that was proven to be electorally efficient was the Southern-Northern or Northern-Southern configurations. Lo and behold, we succeeded with Kufour/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.
It would, perhaps, would have been fair for him to suggest we emplore the Northern-Southern configuration too. This is the time for us to annihilate the perception not entrench it.
It is absolutely out of place to proceed, on that backdrop, to submit that some groupings are good to play second fiddle. Such a notion is lethal and withers the growth of inclusion in our party and must be discouraged, more so, to be shepherded by people considered as leader on their own accord is condemnable.
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.
