NDC Lied To Konadu Rawlings

IT HAS now emerged that the wife of the founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was lied to and deceived by various groups in the ruling party who made her believe that she could become a flag bearer in the 2012 elections and subsequently president of Ghana.

Speaking on various radio stations at the weekend leading members of the party removed their gloves and gave assessments and an analysis of what they believe led Nana Konadu-Agyeman-Rawlings, former First Lady and President of the 31st December Women’s Movement, to go into the lopsided race with strong assurance that she would win.

Minister of Communications, Haruna Iddrisu stated on Joy fm’s Newsfile that the woman was simply deceived and that she, together with her campaign team fell into the trap. Haruna Iddrisu maintained that the confidence exhibited by the Konadu campaign team going into the elections was not only misplaced but based on misinformation.

According to him, in some parts of the country, local co-ordinators of the former first lady’s campaign team assembled some political charlatans who posed as delegates and were addressed by the Konadu campaign.

“In one of the meetings where he Kofi Adams was not present in the Northern Region, somebody purporting to be leading the Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings campaign just picked young people from Tamale to say in a meeting that they were representatives from Bimbilla, Wulensi, Nakpanduri, Kpandai and others. So if you were dealing with them with the hope and confidence that these were NDC delegates, you were being misled and you were in a world of your own,” he stated.

The Tamale Central MP said he was aware of a situation where “we knew that the people they met, none of them was a delegate.”

On the same programme, Kofi Adams, a Deputy General Secretary of the NDC who joined the ‘Konadu for 2012’ campaign, announced that he would soon write a book on the ‘behaviour of delegates’ who he said had left them in the lurch after giving Nana Konadu ‘massive’ endorsement.

He said given the overwhelming endorsement and words of promise and encouragement they received from the NDC delegates during their nationwide tour, they were shocked at the turn of events when President Mills trounced the former first lady by 96% to 3% votes in Sunyani on July 9.

“You interact with delegates and they give you all the assurances; they even tell you things you didn’t even know at the time you made the attempt to want to run for that position; they carry you through; they let you understand that indeed…they believe in and accept your message without being confident enough to tell you that they cannot resist pressures from the powers that be,” he stated.

Kofi Adams however laid part of the blame on the door-step of the presidential campaign team who he accused of plotting an elaborate plan on voting day which ended in their defeat.

He said “wicked lies” were circulated via text messages that Mr. Rawlings had asked his wife to step down. Others also claimed that the founder was going to vote for President Mills and therefore the contest was over.

“When she was giving her speech, people became angry in the stands and were shouting “Ah you’ve been asked to step down, why are you not stepping down?” so that kind of anger during that last minute went against our candidate. Even when Mr Rawlings voted, rumours were spread that he voted for Mills,” Adams said.