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MORE TO QUIT NDC
 As In-fighting Depeens Over Obed & Co after Congress of ‘thuggery, intimidation and terrorist acts’
Several key supporters of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) are set to leave the embattled Rawlings-led party over the thrashing served on some members of the party at its last delegates’ congress.
Others who were not at the Koforidua congress but are set to resign from the NDC say they would do so because they cannot afford to wait to be flogged out because of their perceived links to the camp of former party Chairman, Dr Obed Yao Asamoah.
Some also argue that their links to Obed put them up as game for hardliners within the party who insist that the NDC need to shed off Obed-loyalists, and would do anything to ensure the achievement of that dream.
Set to take the fall from the party, sources say, are former Acting General Secretary Bede Ziedeng, who was recently assaulted by former president Rawlings, and several other key party functionaries from the Ashanti and Brong Ahafo regions.
Sources say Alhaji Ismaila Bawa, first Greater Accra regional vice chairman of the NDC, who was nearly lynched because transport allowance he collected from the National Treasurer was perceived to be bribe money may also walk out of the party, this paper gathered.
Already gone are two incumbent executives of the Greater Accra Region and three members of the Volta branch.
Those from Accra are regional organiser Nikoi Addision and his deputy Theophilus Addo Mills, who wrote in his resignation letter that he “took this decision to save my family and numerous admirers from further stress.” He was the longest serving constituency secretary of the Tema East Constituency of the NDC.
Deputy Regional Organiser Michael Gamor and his colleague Deputy Regional Secretary Manfred Nuku-Dei, as well as first Deputy Youth Organiser Wisdom Dafeamekpor, all of the Volta Region, took the fall from the NDC last week, citing lack of internal democracy and suppression of dissent as their reasons.
Another major league player in the party and former Ashanti regional chairman of the NDC, Emmanuel Nti Fordjour, confirmed his resignation from the party last Saturday, a day after he initially denied reports that he has resigned. He also hinted of more resignations from the regional branch of the party.
The resignations follow that of defeated Chairman Obed Asamoah and Madam Frances Awurabena Essiam, the former National Women’s Organizer, who gave up her post to pursue an MBA programme abroad, and lawyer Kweku Baah, former Vice Chairman of the party, who indicated in his protest note that he could not contain the “thuggery, intimidation and terrorist acts” perpetrated on other party members during the NDC congress at the Eredec Hotel in Koforidua.
Frances Essiam quit the NDC after she was viciously beaten and belted with horse whips for daring to criticise former president Rawlings, who had committed their souls to God for daring to criticise him.
She later described the NDC as a cult, adding that the only way to remain in the party was to worship the former president, whom, she said, had assumed the status of the cult leader against whom no one could express dissenting views.
Significantly, while the party is yet to come to terms with the resignations, which Concord gathered, has been lined up for several weeks from various constituencies, the party is engaged in another in-fighting on how to save the fall-out of the resignations.
Hardliners within the Rawlings group, which won most of the executive posts on offer at the Koforidua congress, have further upped the ante, claiming that the party needs the cleansing of those who have resigned in order to be strong.
Members of the group, including Rawlings loyalists such as the controversial Dr Tony Aidoo, Victor Smith, the Ahwoi brothers, Nii Lantey Vanderpuye and Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, have justified the resignations.
Others have even celebrated it, drumming home the message: “They should go way you; we don’t need them to win the 2008 elections.”
Within the same camp, some have also sought to deny, rationalise and sanitise the attacks on party supporters who were seen as Obed followers on radio, including the vicious whipping of the one-time Rawlings loyalist and immediate past National Womens’s Organiser of the NDC, Frances Essiam.
“Wa no ye din, eye se wo san so ye din” (if your are vocal, you must also be strong to back it) was the refrain of one of the leading academics of the party, Mr Ato Ahwoi, when he spoke recently on radio.
But some dissenting voices in the party, including a large number of MPs, have also raised concerns over the hardliners’ approach, insisting that some of the hardliners are by their actions further strengthening the allegations made by those who have left, and reinforcing the perception that the NDC is anti-dissent.
One of the notable faces and voices of the party who belonged to this school of thought, Honourable Twumasi Appiah of Sene was beside himself with rage two days ago, when he spoke to Adom FM’s Fiifi Boafo on his morning show programme, “Dwaso Nsem.”
In exasperation, he urged party hardliners to realise that as sponsors of the party, MPs feel that dialogue can still be used to rally back those who have left and that vilification and direct insults on them would force them to take a hard stance, explaining that winning elections is about votes and numbers, and that the NDC would need all the votes it can marshal to win the 2008 polls.
“But if they feel that what they are engaged in is the best way to solve this, then they should go on. At least, some of us would stop wasting our time and efforts to try and bring them back.”
He wondered whether the party’s hardliners enjoy being in opposition, explaining that those who were leaving were not leaving alone but were leaving with their admirers, dependants and possibly friends.
Similar views have been expressed by National Organiser of the party, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo and Deputy General Secretary, Baba Jamal, among others.
Meanwhile, party members are set to resign in droves and on weekly and regular basis, with the formation of a new party in tow, this reporter can reveal.
Talks have already started with some members of the Reform Party for a unification of the two splinter parties from the NDC, with a number of sitting MPs waiting till late 2008 to resign and join the bandwagon.
Meantime, as some core and top members of the NDC quit the party, the respected former Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Dr Kwesi Botchwey, is also set to take his turn in signing off from the “AKATAMANSO FAMILY”, reports Akua Agyeiwah Appiah.
Dr. Botchwey, who was an aspirant to the flagbearership of the party, dropped this hint on the Accra-based Joy FM radio Monday, indicating that contrary to the assertion that the shedding of Obed loyalists would make the party stronger, the unity and democratic reflection in the NDC is completely gone.
“The party has lost its credibility and prominence by allowing all kinds of appalling behaviours of some supporters and members of the party.”
He said during his campaign for the flagbearership in 2004, a similar thing happened in which there was rioting and fighting.
He disagreed with those who claim the party is in good shape, and classified such people as cowards who do not speak the truth and are frightened to say what actually is going on in the party.
According to him, the method of misconduct and non-democratic tendencies, which have been adopted and employed in the NDC, has caused the party to lose some of its prominent members.
He painted a rather ugly picture of the NDC, explaining that while the NDC’s aim is to implement a socialist democratic cause, the dominance of the personality of Rawlings, has undermined the tradition and made many significant Ghanaian voters lose trust in the party.
In his view, intimidation and harassment of party supporters at the NDC congress did not give delegates enough confidence to vote their hearts out.
He said the numerous violent attacks on Obed supporters have given the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) a strong weapon to flog the NDC and provide a greater chance for the NPP to win the elections in 2008.
Author: ALFRED OGBAMEY
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