Count me out of National Democratic Congress politics

Accra, July 31, GNA - Nana Addo-Aikins, Former Tribunal Chairman during the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) era, says he distanced himself from PNDC and whatever it stood for in 1986/87 and completely broke links with all PNDC/ National Democratic Congress (NDC) related politics in 1993.

In a statement he sent to the Ghana News Agency on Saturday, Nana Addo-Aikins said; "in a situation in which I am suffering from a seemingly unending predicament as a result of NDC related intrigues, and more so in a situation in which certain "lucky" PNDC/NDC operatives have had overflowing wealth or have managed to have rich foreign friends to either build mansions for them or take care of their children, all at a time when my involvement in PNDC politics continues to make me grapple with life, anybody who will see me as a person who will play ball with the NDC or any NDC related politics must have his head examined".

He described a number of publications in the "Statesman", a private newspaper, against him as "blackmail and vicious smear and hate campaign, which are designed to achieve a purpose, which cannot exclude setting me up as an enemy of the State and nation wrecker, who should be destroyed to set certain vicious minds at ease. "Statesman's" psychological warfare, which is in fact and indeed counter productive in all its dimensions, puts a responsibility on Government to put a check on such a growing vicious propaganda in national politics, whose effects can seriously undermine national cohesion."

Nana Addo-Aikins appealed to President John Agyekum Kufuor "to take a hard look at those people with bloated ego, who have been exploiting their easy access to the media to make mischief and unduly create enemies for government, and deal with all such infant politicians and Mischief Makers appropriately, to prevent them from leading him into making serious mistakes". He urged the public to ignore all the allegations made against him by the "Statesman" and regard them as unfounded and made in bad faith and said he was taking steps to call on the "Statesman" and its collaborators to prove their allegations against him before an appropriate forum.

Nana Addo-Aikins accused the "Statesman" of falsely attributing to him a statement he never made. He said the "Statesman" in its Tuesday 20th July 2004 edition had falsely published that he had stated; "cadres should hold on steadfastly until the imperialist NPP Government is kicked out of office, either through the ballot box or through popular revolt by the people". Nana Addo-Aikins said the paper had in another publication quoted him as having said at another forum "that the NDC should not have handed over power to the NPP after the December 2000 General Election". He said the paper sought to link him to "clandestine activities of certain persons, whom the paper did make the world see as cadres with dubious links with certain countries which the paper had portrayed as evil".

Nana Addo-Aikins said: "I state emphatically, that all these allegations, which border on treason, subversion and wickedness are all false," adding that he had never been a member of the NDC ever since it was formed neither had he attended any cadres or Former President Jerry John Rawlings-related meeting since 1993.