NPP plots Rawlings, Gen. Mosquito clash

Deliberate attempts by the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to create enmity between the Founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), ex-President Rawlings and the party, as well as paint the NDC as a corrupt party, are underway, The Catalyst can reveal.

Similar to what the NPP did in 2012, when the vile propaganda was pushed by the opposition party that the General Secretary of the ruling NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia aka General Mosquito, had described his party’s Founder as a barking dog and managed to convince even some NDC faithful to believe that blatant lie, the crisis-hit opposition party has hatched yet another dastardly plot.

This time around, a speech by Mr Rawlings asking for reforms and expansion of the NDC’s Electoral College is being twisted and used to, once again, in the hope of knocking the heads of the NDC founder and his party’s General Secretary together and starting an internal fight in the party to create confusion ahead of election 2016, with the hope of finding loopholes to accuse the ruling party of, in the near future.

The Catalyst can state that the desperate plot by the power-thirsty NPP is meant to divert attention from the numerous crises in the party, as its leadership struggles to hold the party together in the face of imminent collapse. The party finds ex-President Rawlings’ popularity the best attention-catching item to shift focus from itself to the ruling party, the paper has learnt.

Right after the speech by the Former President, the NPP has decided to set in motion false reports in the media implying, on one hand, that General Mosquito had kicked against the former President’s suggestion, and on the other hand, that the NDC General Secretary was going round looking for a whopping 200 billion to implement the suggested reforms.

The reports, the paper has learnt, sought not only to imply that the founder’s speech had set General Mosquito on a search for money through corrupt means to implement reforms he (Rawlings) suggested, but to trigger a reaction from either of them for a clash that would shift attention from NPP’s deteriorating internal crisis to the NDC.

The reports also suggested that Gen. Mosquito had rejected former President Rawlings’ suggestion.

A report captioned ‘Mosquito To JJ: NDC Is Going Biometric...We Won’t Expand Or Reform Electoral System, But Scrap It’ which appeared on peacefmonline.com on 7th October 2013 sought to create this erroneous impression.

According to the report, “…the NDC has indicated that it is not going to reform or enlarge its electoral college as its founder, Jerry John Rawlings advised,” saying that “The ruling party says it will rather introduce an entirely new form of registration for its members and voting of candidates at primaries.”

Following the former President’s proposition at Dzodze in the Volta region over the weekend during his speech at the Deza Festival for the need for the ruling NDC to embark on reforms by enlarging its electoral college in order to enhance its chances of victory in the 2016 elections, the NDC General Secretary and his two deputies, including Mr Kofi Adams, a former spokesperson for Mr. Rawlings, have severally welcomed the suggestions, indicating that the reforms had already begun as the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party had already taken a decision in that regard.

According to the former President, “Our party, the NDC, needs some significant reform to face the challenges of the dynamic global political climate. Our current internal structures need to be reviewed. I do not think the necessary reforms required in order to clean up the image of the party are being treated with the urgency they require. If we do not act in cleaning up the party, we will, as I warned before, face a problem in 2016.”

In clarifying the party’s agreement with the position of the NDC Founder in an interview on Peace FM’s morning show ‘Kokrokoo’, General Mosquito indicated that the scope of the on-going reforms is such that the NDC is in the process of undertaking a massive overhaul of the current system of Electoral College and extending it to cover the entire membership, who will be biometrically registered.

It is thus shocking the media reports emanating from this interview and others suggesting that the NDC Scribe is in a head-on collision with his party’s Founder when the exact reverse is the case.

This, if not well managed well by the NDC, would have led to a misunderstanding within the party that the NPP would capitalize on and heave a sigh of relief from the embarrassing happenings in the opposition party.

It would also become a weapon to be used to accuse the party of using corrupt means to raise funds to support its activities, with reference to the false publication as a source.

The paper can state that the overall effect, as is being sought by the NPP, would be a divided NDC ahead of election 2016, with ex-President Rawlings refusing to join the campaign trail.

However, the vigilance of the General Secretary of the NDC has exposed the plot and nipped it in the bud before it could affect the party.

General Mosquito quickly discerned the plot and swiftly reacted by debunking the allegations. “These headlines were just thrown into the system that the General Secretary is going round looking for 200 billion to implement the reforms. These are the types of things that can throw a spanner into the works,” he reportedly said.

He made it clear that plans were afoot to bring about reforms in the electoral system of the party and that the suggestion by the Founder just added some impetus to it.

He emphasized that, “It will be self-financing. It is a major means of revenue generation for the party and so I don’t know where the idea is coming from that somebody is going round looking for money to finance this. Rather, it is the system that will be built to help improve the finances of the party and it is going to be self-financing.”

The NPP is in a crisis over the intention of their twice-defeated candidate, Nana Akufo-Addo, to stand again for election to lead the party into the 2016 elections. There are suggestions from some quarters that Nana Addo be endorsed since he was more popular than any other prospective candidate in the party. These suggestions are facing stiff opposition from the pro-Kufuor faction who want a broad-based selection process to get a flagbearer.

There is a stalemate at the moment after a series of meetings failed to come to a conclusive agreement. In the midst of the confusion, Mr Sammy Crabbe, the former Greater Accra Regional Chairman sent a letter to the leadership seeking to personally provide some GHc40 million needed to run grassroots elections.

Every attempt is, therefore, being made by the NPP to generate a make-believe crisis in the NDC in the media in order to cool off its own heat by trying to knock the heads of former President Rawlings and some party executives with the least opportunity.