What the constitution says: How to remove Officers in NPP
Some section of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have called for the heads of the party’s General Secretary, Kwabena Agyapong and National Chairman, Paul Afoko following the death of the Upper East Chairman of the party.
Kwabena Agyapong yesterday refuted rumours of his resignation, saying that if anyone wants to remove him from office, they should follow the party’s constitution.
www.233times.net decided to share with the general public what Article 10, which touches on the removal of officers says;
ARTICLE 10
REMOVAL OF OFFICERS
- Whenever forty percent (40%) of the delegates that elect Constituency, Regional and National officers as the case may be, give written notice to the Constituency, Regional or National Executive as the case may be, of the demand for the removal of any elected officer he Executive Committee which receives such notice shall within one (1) week of receipt of the notice circulate such notice to all delegates affected.
- The petition for the removal of an officer shall be on stated grounds, a copy of which shall be given to the affected officer who shall be given the opportunity to be heard by a body constituted by the Executive Committee.
- Within one (1) month of the circulation of such notice referred to in clause (1), the said Executive Committee shall summon an Extraordinary Delegates Conference to deliberate and decide on the matter.
- In the case of the demand for the removal of any member of the Constituency Executive Committee, the written notice shall be given to the Regional Executive Committee. With respect to the removal of Regional Officers, the written notice shall be submitted to the National Executive Committee while in the case of the removal of National Executive Officers, the written notice shall be to the National Council.”
- Upon receipt of the written notice, the Constituency, Regional, National Executive Committee or National Council as the case may be, may suspend the officer from acting in his or her office pending the holding of the Emergency Delegates Conference.
- The notice summoning the Conference shall specify the agenda and the approval for the removal of the Officer shall be by two-thirds majority of the votes cast at the Conference.
Refusal by the Conference to approve the removal of the Officer shall, automatically terminate his or her suspension, if any, from office.
- Clauses 1-5 herein shall not apply to appointed officers who may be removed by the decision of wthe appointing authority.
Author: Nana Kwesi Coomson (www.233times.net) @nkcoomson on Twitter
Laws are made for man and not the other way round, so organized body like NPP and any other are not to be solely governed by a constitution but by the 3C’s: Constitution, Convention and Consensus. However, it has to be entrenched in the constitution but if not, too bad, because radical problems that may require radical approach or solution could surface. Before following all the constitutional procedures to arrive at a decision, the situation could have escalated beyond redeemable level; whereas a consensus could have put the situation under control. I believe the embroiglo of the decision to ask the two principal officers to step aside assuaded what could have been a turbulent appraisal of what happened in Bolgatanga. To some extent the decision taken was a respite to the aggrieved unlike if the decision had been to go via constitutional means. Therefore, I will enjoin your party to adopt the British approach of adopting written and unwritten constitution. This will take care of the other 2C’s in future.