Manasseh Azure Awuni has condemned ethnic rhetoric emerging within the New Patriotic Party’s internal leadership debate, describing it as dangerous to the party and the country.
He cited remarks made by Asante Akim South MP Kwaku Asante Boateng, who reportedly argued that Dr Mahamudu Bawumia should not lead the NPP because he is an “outsider” and claimed the party “should not elevate a slave.”
Manasseh described the comments as extreme and reflective of a broader “obsession among some who view the NPP as an ethnic preserve.”
According to him, Dr Bawumia is being targeted not on competence but ethnicity and religion.
“He is the only non-Akan in the flagbearer contest, and his background keeps dripping from the venomous lips of his opponents,” he noted.
He warned that tribal politicking could alienate voters across the country.
“If you denigrate non-Akans to win your party’s ticket, how will you campaign to other ethnic groups in the general election?” he asked, calling such behaviour “divisive, dangerous, and politically suicidal.”
Manasseh stressed that Ghana has moved beyond the era when political leadership was determined by ethnic origin, asserting, “I will not support or vote for someone who thinks people from my part of the country are not fit to lead, and I may not be alone.”
