A plea by Enoch Teye Mensah, former Member of Parliament for Ningo-Prampram, for executives of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to request former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings to return to the party is needless, Anthony Nukpenu, Greater Accra Regional Secretary of the NDC, has said.

Mrs Rawlings, wife of the founder of the NDC, quit the party ahead of the 2012 elections to form her own party, citing indiscipline and corruption in the NDC as her reason for her exit.

Mr Mensah told Accra-based 3FM: “The story must be told. People cherish what President Rawlings [did], especially the former First Lady, and we should go and beg the former First Lady. It was messy, we should go and beg the former First Lady to come back.”

However, responding to this plea on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen on Monday February 27, Mr Nukpenu said the party did not need Mrs Rawlings.

He said: “We are a moving train. As we move, some will get down, others will join, and so that call to go and beg somebody to come back is a very negligible call, very irrelevant, and has no bearing on the cause of the NDC.

“As we speak, that person who made the call could be suspended from the party if care is not taken. Let me emphasise, that person making that call to go and beg whoever to come back, I am telling him that if he does not take care he would be suspended from the party.

“As it stands today, I cannot vouch for his loyalty and complete commitment to the NDC’s advancement for the next elections. If you are alive today and your loyalty and commitment to the party is questionable, you think we will sit down and look at you?

“NDC is now in opposition. We are in introspective mood looking for a surgeon that will diagnose us in the theatre and we are expecting leaders who have led this party in their respective regimes as ministers and members of parliament to be committed to that cause but they are making divisive comments, comments that do not help the unity of the party.”