Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday, June 19, 2014
The
immediate-past National Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Jake Otanka
Obetsebi-Lapmtey is worried about the sudden flurry of people who want to lead
the party in the 2016 elections, saying the “party is walking on tight rope”
due to their activities.
“What I
am concerned about is that the people of Ghana are looking to the NPP to rescue
them from all the terrible things that are happening. However, the NPP is now
also showing it does not recognize that the nation is facing a crisis. We are
much more concerned about our own petty grievances and personal agendas instead
of the national agenda.”
Mr.
Obetsebi-Lamptey, in an exclusive interview since leaving office as NPP
Chairman, expressed his opinion on many issues from petty squabbles in the
party to the current economic crunch in the country.
“I know
as I speak, I am going to receive a lot of backlash, but I will maintain that
not everything should come down to an election. Inside the NPP itself, when we
go to national executive committee, national council meetings and so on, we do
not always rely on elections. We build consensus. We negotiate so that there is
no need for an election.”
Early Congress
He said
that the leadership of the party should first let everybody feel that their
views were important and that those who have serious talent will be given an
opportunity to serve in the government that will come from an NPP victory.
He also said
that consensus-building had become a concern “because now we have people who
all want us to know that their ambition can best be realized when they lead.”
Conclave
He said
it was time for NPP leaders to “sit in conclave and hammer out among ourselves
about who should lead us.”
He said
Ghanaians were keenly monitoring the situation and added that “they will listen
to all the nastiness that will come out and they could say if you cannot manage
your own affairs how can you manage the country? It is unnecessary. We do not
have to put the country through it.”
Things fall apart
“I am
very much concerned at the moment about what the NPP is doing because we have a
government that is giving us probably the worse time we have had in Ghana’s
political history.”
Mr.
Obetsebi-Lamptey said he would like the NPP to show “at this time that we
recognize that there is a crisis in front of Ghana and asked the party to “behave
like Britain when they faced the threat of Nazis Germany.”
“They
recognized that there was a war that they had to fight and so girded resources
for that war. The NPP should be girding itself for the fight against the NDC to
rescue Ghana and be sending a message to the people that it recognizes how
serious the position is.”
“We
should recognize that 2016 is really special. It is an election that we must by
all means win and we must be seen to be doing everything to win it. I am afraid
that what I am seeing is not helping to feel that. When I talk to people they
also feel that the NPP is not serious about the fight ahead of us.”
He said, “We
should send a signal to Ghanaians that we recognize the seriousness of the
problem facing the country. The economy is in complete shambles, education is a
disaster, health is getting even worse and every single thing is beginning to
crumble and fall. Everything in this country is now a priority. This is really
not the time for us to be quibbling and quarrelling about who should lead us.”
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