Dr Spio-Garbrah, former Minister for Trade and Industry, has urged members of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), to remain strong and maintain their faith in the NDC.

He reminded them of the work of the Prof Botchwey Committee which has been established to do some fact-finding on what went wrong with the 2016 elections and to cooperate with it.

Dr Spio-Garbrah made the statement when he visited Madam Anita Mensah, an elderly long-standing NDC Matriarch in the Sekondi-Takoradi area who has had her right leg amputated after attending the funeral of his cousin, Delma Sapara Grant over the weekend.

Madam Anita Mensah is the proprietor of the famous Animens Hotel which has been for decades the preferred lodging facility for past NDC Presidential candidates, Ministers, MPs and other top office holders.

Madam Mensah regretted that while hospitalized at Pantang, near Accra, for nine months before her amputation, no senior party officials or appointees came to visit her. She thanked Dr Spio-Garbrah for always showing interest in her welfare and for his visit.

On his part. Dr Spio-Garbrah thanked Madam Mensah for the several decades of support to the NDC and asked her to forgive anybody in the party who may have wronged her.

He stated that this was a time for reconciliation and healing within the Party, and hoped that other party members would make it their duty to look out for the elderly in the Party who may feel abandoned to make them feel appreciated. Later, in response to some questions by some party faithful who gathered at Animens Hotel when they heard the former Minister was in the neighborhood, Dr Spio-Garbrah debunked some “fake news” stories that he had begun campaigning for the flagbearership of the party or had been arrested at Kotoka Airport. He entreated members to disregard such stories and treat them with the contempt that they deserve.

The former Minister called such stories the work of mischief makers, and alerted them to the fact that in this information age with a dominance of social media, everybody was a potential journalist who could post whatever they wanted on any number of platforms.

‘It was important therefore for Party members to be very discerning and to cross-check all unusual stories they read before believing them or circulating them,’ he said.