Anyidoho implores NDC leadership to instil discipline in the party

A former Deputy General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has charged the leadership of his party to instil discipline among members.

According to Koku Anyidoho, who has felt sidelined since his defeat at the party's congress, there are some undisciplined young people in the NDC who think they have seen it all.

"We too we saw things...I just left party leadership so I'm imploring party leadership to instil discipline in the party," he said during the 41st June 4 celebration in Accra.

Anyidoho thinks that the party leadership has "let too many young men on the loose" and that will not help the party.

Anyidoho who was a moderator at the 41st June 4 anniversary, indicated that many of the party folks are peddling falsehood about him on social media.

He said, “Me, I’m insulted. People are paid: ‘Go and insult him, call him names’. The other side, they have the airtime; they propagate what they want to propagate. We have airtime and it is to cast aspersions at our own, call them names: traitors, whatever.

“Well, the flame has been lit. Today, we are spending the anniversary. It’s up to the leadership. There’s the desire, there’s the passion but if you don’t lead and lead well, don’t blame anybody for your woes”, Koku Anyidoho warned.

To the leadership, he alluded: “Every team coach decides the players who will play [in] the team. If you are not even in the reserve, you dare not wear a jersey and go on the pitch – it’s against the rules. Coaches should choose their teams and be responsible for the results of the games that they encounter”.

Koku Anyidoho recounted how the founder has been insulted over the years on Social Media.

He narrated, "I happened to travel with the founder and the leader to Ho to go and commiserate with the regional chairman, Comrade Ametepe, who had lost the wife. The Friday prior to that movement, the founder had been so insulted on social media only because he had attended the funeral of the late Brigadier Ahiaglo and some picture was captured of him having supposedly sat and turned his back to the flag bearer of the NDC.

"So insulted, until we got to Ho and he asked Dan to go into the vehicle and pick up a pillow. And when that pillow was brought, he showed it to everybody and said: ‘This is the pillow that I’ve been sitting on in my vehicle for years because a young officer, I tried landing from a parachute, I didn’t land well and my back has been aching me for decades, so, when I sit, I have to sit and turn every now and then until I’m comfortable’. Yet, he is insulted”.

The 41st anniversary of the June 4 Uprising was celebrated under the theme "Strengthening the spirit of patriotism resilience and integrity in difficult times."

On June 4, 1979, some insurrectionists, mainly junior officers and other ranks within the Ghana Armed Forces staged a coup d'etat and removed General Frederick W.K. Akuffo, head of the Supreme Military Council II regime. They freed Flt. Lt. Rawlings and other soldiers who had been arrested for an earlier coup on May 15, less than a month earlier.

Rawlings later went on to become a head of state for 19 years. During his multiple administrations and every year since leaving office in 2000, he has celebrated June 4 by rallying the political party he founded, the NDC, under the June 4 mantra of "Probity and Accountability".

John Dramani Mahama, the NDC flagbearer is expected to champion the June 4 mantra in his campaign. If he fails to do that, he will be said to have betrayed the spirit of June 4, the so-called moral foundation on which the NDC is built.