By William
Yaw Owusu
Saturday
August 11, 2018
Former Eastern Regional Minister, Emmanuel Victor
Smith, says experienced diplomat and former Foreign Affairs Minister, James Victor
Gbeho and his associates have personal scores to settle with former President
John Dramani Mahama.
According to Victor Smith, Mr Gbeho and other old
guards of the party, who are against Mr Mahama’s comeback, are full of
bitterness.
“Comments by Victor Gbeho and the others are just a
collection of personal grievances but I wonder why they are trying to damage
the goose that lays the golden egg,” he said on Asempa FM in Accra last Thursday.
Tribal
Connection
Mr. Smith’s comment is coming in the wake of a
statement issued by a pro-NDC group called Social Democratic Forum who attacked
some NDC gurus in the Volta Region for undermining the Mahama's second bid to
lead the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 election.
The group, which issued a statement through its
spokespersons- Manan Mustapha and Alhassan Issahaku- played the tribal card and
virtually pitched NDC supporters from the northern regions against their
counterparts in the Volta Region.
They claimed Mr. Gbeho, Ken Dzirasah, a former
deputy Speaker, and Richard Quashigah, MP for Keta, as well as many Volta
chiefs and MPs, “are still very much active in the plot to fight JM’s comeback.
We have seriously interpreted these actions as an attack on the North.”
Former President Mahama’s office has dissociated
itself from the ethnocentric comments of the group but did not condemn them.
Public
Utterances
Victor Smith, Ghana’s former High Commissioner to
the United Kingdom (UK), was not happy with the public condemnation of Mr. Gbeho
and some of the elders of the NDC.
“When I heard Victor Gbeho’s comment about Mahama, I
was very hurt so I called him because all the grievances are being taken care
of within the party,” he said.
Mr. Smith’s statement lends credence to the fact
that there is serious division in the NDC ahead of the 2020 general elections.
He said the opposition party has a big opportunity
to win the 2020 election but admitted that such ‘misguided’ comments by leading
members could rock the boat for Mr. Mahama and the NDC.
“We have a big chance to win, don’t spoil it. Let’s
not destroy this opportunity with our bitterness,” he said.
Uneasy
Calm
There has been an uneasy calm in the NDC since they
were sent packing by the electorate in favour of the New Patriotic Party on
December 7, 2016, making Mr. Mahama a one-term President.
It heightened when it became clear that Mr. Mahama
is preparing to contest the presidential election once again, using the NDC Unity
Walk as a stepping stone.
Some elders of the party, especially those from the
Volta Region, which is the NDC’s stronghold, have dumped Mr. Mahama for Joshua
Alabi, the immediate–past Rector of the University of Professional Studies
(UPSA), to lead the party in 2020.
Mr. Gbeho took a swipe at Mr. Mahama recently when
he called him a failure for leading the party to a miserable defeat in the 2016
election.
Mahama
Snub
The experienced diplomat said the time has come for
the party to rebrand and build on its shortfalls in 2016 by electing a
flagbearer, who has a better chance of leading the party to win the 2020
election and said he sees those qualities in the former rector.
“The reality now is that we are rebranding
everything. In all democracies around the world when you go to an election and
you lose as badly as we did, the leadership steps aside not because you want to
sack people, but it gives the party an opportunity to rebrand itself to look at
its faults and change its ways and that is what we are doing now,” Mr. Gbeho
said when addressing NDC faithful at a meeting in Ashaiman.
He said the NDC would make a big mistake if it
relied solely on appearance and votes for Mr. Mahama again for the next
election, saying it would be wrong to just follow somebody because he looks
good.
“My brother
(Hon Ken Dzirasah) and I sat down one afternoon by the riverside in Sogakope.
We thought a lot about our party. We thought a lot about the younger
generation. And we asked ourselves who can lead us now? After consultations, we
agreed that our best hope was in no other person than Professor Joshua Alabi,”
he asserted.
Dzirasah’s
Jab
A former Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Ken Dzirasah
also said Mr Alabi is more marketable than former President Mahama.
“I want to say that after several reflections on the
way forward for the National Democratic Congress (NDC), myself and my good
brother, Ambassador Gbeho, conducted few investigations and came to the
conclusion that the most marketable personality that could carry us into the
year 2020, as a flagbearer, is Joshua Alabi.”
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