Mahama is right; Nana Addo told me in 2008 that NPP won't cede its Akan leadership - Attah

Ghana's ambassador to Namibia, Alhaji Harruna Attah has dismissed criticisms aimed at President John Mahama for his some comments he made against the New Patriotic Party (NPP) which were deemed as ethnocentric.

President Mahama over the weekend stated that the NPP was an anti-Northerner party which does not see Northerners as fit to assume any top leadership role within their party and therefore warned Vice Presidential Candidate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia that just like the late vice President Aliu Mahama was frustrated with the contest of 16 other candidates when he tried to succeed former President John Kufuor in 2007, so will he be stopped if he tried to become a flagbearer of the NPP.

“I want to live to see the day; you let anything happen today and let our brother Bawumia say he is standing for president in NPP. They will never give it to him, I can assure you", he said while addressing a rally at Lawra as part of his campaign tour of the Upper West region.

His comment has been criticised by many with the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) condemning the statement and asking him to apologise.

"The MFWA considers the comments of President Mahama highly divisive and unfortunate and condemns same in no uncertain terms. As a leader of the country, President Mahama is expected to act in ways that will unite rather than divide the people of this country,” it said in a statement.

But Mr Attah says, there was nothing wrong with the statement because "the President was only stating an obvious and historical fact known to many people with a sound knowledge of Ghana’s politics since Independence".

In a statement released on Wednesday, he made bold claims against NPP Presidential Candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo and other leading members of the party which suggest that their party indeed was against a non-Akan and non-Christian leadership as put forward by President Mahama.

According to Ambassador Attah, who is the former Editor of the Akufo-Addo owned Statesman Newspaper and thus a leading member of the NPP the following ensued between him and the NPP presidential candidate and other stalwarts because he [Attah] decided to support the late former Vice President Aliu Mahama during the 2008 NPP flagbearer race.

“I do recollect very clearly, as if it happened only yesterday, Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo invited me to his office at Ridge near the offices of the Electoral Commission. I honoured the invitation, not knowing what to expect. The outcome was one of the most revealing encounters I have ever had with a Ghanaian politician. He raised a number of issues and concluded on my “support” for the late Vice President. On that, this is what he told me,” 

“The words have been indelibly etched on my conscience: “Harruna, your support for Aliu was flawed. If you think our party will cede its Akan leadership, you are wrong.” He went on to expatiate on the theme, but with my mind reeling at this blatant and brazen ethnocentricity, nothing else really mattered to me again. When I left, I confided in a few people, mainly family and friends, as witnesses. I received all manner of suggestions on how to handle this “bombshell” and indeed one family member high up in the NPP even suggested that I take it up with President Kufuor. The frightening fundamental message was clear: No non-Akan should dream of leading the NPP as Presidential Candidate.”

NPP Presidential Candidate Nana Akufo-Addo’s virulent opposition to an Aliu Presidency was so intense that he once openly tongue lashed me at a dinner party where the host had to come to my defence and his daughter even asked me what I had done to her father…Ironically she asked: “Are you NDC?”

“Not only that, Mr. Hackman Owusu Agyeman, going beyond Nana Akufo-Addo’s ethnicity, used religion as his anti-Aliu stance. He confronted me in the presence of a witness: “Abdul-Rahman, with a nation of about 70% Christians, do you think it will be fair to have a Muslim President?” He was referring to Alhaji Aliu Mahama, a Muslim. I answered calmly that in all the major hotspots of the world, it is when some groups think they are dominant and go on to marginalize groups they regard as minorities that the minorities also rise up to assert themselves, by whatever means,” Ambassador Attah further disclosed.

"Dr. Addo-Kufuor, President Kufuor’s brother had his turn too. At a funeral at the Trade Fair Centre in Accra, he also railed against my “support” for Aliu and threatened that “You are working yourself out of reckoning in any future NPP government.” I replied that history would vindicate me. I could go on and on…"

Stressing that he has been forced to go public with those comments because “President Mahama has recently been targeted by all sorts of critics for allegedly making ethnocentric comments in his campaign trip up North", he urged "the MFWA and others to be more careful before jumping into issues without adequate historical perspectives must be even more circumspect about things they publish, than the people they seek to condemn".

Read Mr Attah's full statement here