NDC challenges Kufuor to test popularity

The General Secretary of the opposition NDC, Johnson Asiedu Nketia says the NPP will still receive the worst humiliation no matter the status of any candidate that they support in the Tamale Central bye-election.

He said President Kufuor is the most popular personality in the country and if he wanted to test his popularity and that of the NDC, he should avail himself or the NPP for the bye-election to see whether he is still popular as before the 2000 general elections.

Mr Asiedu Nketia says it is a forgone conclusion that the NDC will win the vacant Tamale Central seat to signal to Ghanaians that the party is on the threshold of annexing the 2008 elections whether Wayo Seini was contesting or not.

The NDC general secretary says it does not stand within reason, the argument by the NPP that it decided to pull out of the race because it doesn?t want any escalation of tension between the Abudus and the Andanis during the campaigns for the bye-election.

Mr Asiedu Nketiah argued that in the 2004 general elections when the chieftaincy dispute was at its peak and peace was fragile, the NPP contested the seat and lost and now that peace seems to be in sight they are attributing their impending defeat to peace.

? The truth is that the NPP and its government are so unpopular that Ghanaians are just waiting for their exit for the NDC to come and redeem them from the economic and social hardship of their administration,? he said.

He said in both the Odododiodio and Asawase bye-elections the NPP had the majority in Parliament but contested and lost to the NDC therefore it sounds childish, the attribution to their majority in Parliament for being the reason for their pull out.

He told the Heritage that the argument by the NPP National organiser, Lord Commey that the date for the Tamale Central bye-election was close to that of the burial of the Ya Na was also not justified since as a party in government they have every right to extend the date for either the burial of the Ya Na or the bye-election.