I wasted my time with NDC - Okumkom

One time Jerry John Rawlings confidant and former Chief Executive of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly (KMA), Nana Akwasi Agyeman says after three years of reflection, he has "come to the painful realization that I wasted precious time with the NDC".

Speaking to The Heritage recently, Nana Agyeman, a.k.a. Okumkom, said he has therefore vowed to make amends by throwing his weight and support behind the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government "as it labours to correct the wrongs of the past". Okumkom, who was one time Deputy Minister of Environment in the NDC administration, re-emphasized that he had severed all links with the NDC and would ?expose the party's electoral tricks to the NPP? to ensure that the NPP and President J.A. Kufuor are given another mandate by the electorate at the December polls.

"I have been with them before and I know what they are capable of doing; but I want to assure everyone that we have the situation under control and, come December, we will teach them a bitter lesson," he said.

He also said if he had not left the NDC, he would not have appreciated the ideologies that the party stands for which he described as "anti-human and anti-development".

He therefore called on the electorate to reject the party at the December 2004 elections and also be cautious of the brand of politics the NDC is playing.

Nana Akwasi Agyeman is said to have bankrolled the NDC in the Ashanti Region and offered his residence to the party for meetings during previous elections but broke ranks with them after the 2000 elections. He declared at the time that ex-President Rawlings was his "friend" but President J.A. Kufuor was his "blood brother".