By William
Yaw Owusu
Saturday, November 25 , 2017
The opposition
National Democratic Congress (NDC) has officially opted for former President
John Dramani Mahama over all other persons aspiring to become the party’s
flagbearer for the 2020 presidential election.
National Organizer
of the party, Kofi Adams, on Thursday made it clear that the NDC does not
recognize all those aspiring stalwarts and insisted that the party only
recognizes the former president, who is planning a comeback once again to
contest the next presidential election after being humiliated as an incumbent
in 2016.
Currently, about
five top notches - former Trade and Industry Minister Ekwow Spio-Garbrah;
former University of Professional Studies Accra Rector, Joshua Alabi; Second
Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin; former National Health Insurance
Scheme (NHIS) Chief Executive, Sylvester Mensah and failed parliamentary
aspirant, Stephen Atibuga – are aspiring to lead the NDC for Election 2020.
The comment by Mr Kofi
Adams, who was the Campaign Coordinator of the 2016 John Mahama’s campaign, has
led to some of the stalwarts, who have declared their intentions to lead the
party into the 2020 presidential election, to boycott this weekend’s ‘unity walk’
that the party says it is using to bring the rank and file together.
They are boycotting
the event scheduled for Tarkwa in the Western Region today because they claim
the whole exercise has been skewed in favour of John Dramani Mahama - who wants
to lead the NDC again in 2020, after being humiliated at the polls in 2016, thereby
scattering his second term presidential bid.
Mr Adams, who
supervised the abortive Mahama’s re-election bid as the campaign coordinator,
made the party’s intention clear in an interview posted on Ghanaweb.
“They haven’t
reached the status of former President Mahama for them to be treated that way,”
he said forcefully and went to the extent of saying that “They (aspirants) are
engaging in an illegality.
“If there is any
other person that reached the status of the former president and wants
recognition, he should come out and say it. At this moment we only recognize
the ex-president.”
He said the NDC had
not opened nominations for the aspirants to be accorded flagbearer status and
therefore the party does not recognize any of them.
“Mahama is being
recognized by the party because he is a former president and immediate leader
of the NDC. We therefore give due recognition to him.
“Any true party
person should spend much more time on the timetable set by the party. We have
structured all these things and when we have to open nominations we shall
recognize all of them,” Adams claimed.
He said the party
was going to engage the aspirants and “let them know that they should pipe down
because at this moment we don’t recognize what it is that they are doing.”
Kofi Adams continued,
“They shouldn’t think that we are going to recognize and give them platforms as
aspirants.
“For everything that
we do there is what we call an advantage and disadvantage. For President Mahama,
those who may be contesting against him, if he decides to contest, will be
using some of the things they feel were not done right against him, so if he
has any advantage because he has occupied that position, before we should just
let him be.”
Mr Kofi Adams’ statement
is likely to further deepen the cracks in the party since some of the aspirants
have not been happy about the preferential treatment being given to the Mr
Mahama, as the NDC embarks on its re-organization exercise.
10 Chairmen
Already, there is an
open endorsement and support has been given to Mr Mahama by all the 10 NDC regional
chairmen in clear breach of the party’s rules of engagement; and Kofi Adams’
statement reinforced perceptions that the other candidates might be wasting
their time in contesting the former president.
The 10 chairmen
converged on Accra to meet the ex-president and assured him of their support in
what has come to be known as the ‘Cantonment Declaration.’
The action of the chairmen,
who are part of the National Executive Committee (NEC) - the highest
decision-making body of the party - sparked heated debate in the party, with
some calling for sanctions against them (chairmen) for their ‘divisive’ action.
No comments:
Post a Comment