PRATT SPARKS FIRE IN NDC

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday September 2, 2010
Recent comments by Kwesi Pratt Jnr., the Convention People’s Party (CPP) member who has virtually become the unofficial spokesperson for President John Evans Atta Mills and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) that there is what he calls ‘internal insurgency’ within the ruling party is beginning to spark fire in the party.

Kofi Adams, Spokesman for Former President J.J. Rawlings and his family has become the first to rubbish the outspoken journalist cum social commentator’s comments accusing Mr. Pratt and his ilk of fomenting troubles in the ruling party.

Mr. Pratt’s comments clearly did not go down well with Mr. Adams also the Deputy General Secretary of the NDC who wondered why outsiders that do not belong to the NDC would not mind their own business and instead choose to speak for the ruling party.

Speaking in an interview on Citi FM, Mr. Adams admitted that all is not well in NDC but said the ruling party had been plunged into its current state due to comments by social commentators like Mr. Pratt and others.

He accused Mr. Pratt and other social commentators of feeding on “hear-say,” and creating problems in the NDC where no such “problems” existed and advised him not to be a rumour monger.

Mr. Adam recalled an occasion where Mr. Pratt openly indicted former President Rawlings for allegedly casting a slur on the integrity of President Mills in South Africa during President Jacob Zuma’s inauguration.

“I remember, Mr. Pratt, very vividly repeating that Former President Rawlings [undermined President Mills, but]…this was false because Mr. Rawlings was not even given a platform to even make a public speech,” he said.


Mr. Pratt, Managing Editor of Insight and a leading member of the moribund Committee for Joint Action (CJA) told Citi FM, on Monday that there seemed to be deliberate moves by some NDC top guns to ensure that President Mills failed at all cost.

He said there was currently a raging “internal insurgency” within the ruling party, with key insiders making serious efforts to crush the Mills Presidency for their own parochial political interests but added that President Mills did not appear to appreciate the seriousness of the internal threat to his two-year-old presidency.

“All these agitations and sometimes downright insults of the president and manoevouring by some foot soldiers point to a certain strategy to replace the president and that is why I call it the state of insurgency. It is about regime change, it is a particular power struggle aimed at replacing the president,” he said.

Without mentioning names, Mr. Pratt warned that the growing internal opposition to President Mills will not inure to the benefit of the key insiders leading the attack, but may rather result in a possible return of the opposition NPP to power.

“The blow which will send NDC to the canvas will not come from the New Patriotic Party, it will not come from the Convention People’s Party, it will be a self-inflicted blow; it will be an NDC blow which will send the NDC to the canvas,” he warned.

“I do not know how the regime is going to deal with this problem, but quite frankly, opponents of the regime are very happy with this situation. The regime itself does not appear to have understood the full implications of this internal insurgency; they don’t seem to realize that this can send them to the canvas, they don’t seem to realize that if the current trend continues their task of winning the next election is going to be far more difficult than it has ever been,” he said.