I am very appalled to see the jostling for power crippling into the NDC just a few months after coming out of an election in which any rational being can tell that the NDC came out immaculately well with a great chance of victory in 2024.
As part of this jostling, a group calling itself Cadres for Accountable Leadership (CAL) embarked on a protest targeted at berating John Mahama, the Flagbearer of the party in the 2020 election.
Among other things they are asking John Mahama to provide them with records of results collated by the NDC. They also had inscriptions on placards that raises serious questions as to whether or not they are genuine members of the NDC.
For instance, some of them are saying that, John Mahama is destroying the NDC. Some also say that the NDC is not for John Mahama so he should stop controlling the party. No serious member of the NDC will make such claims even if he/she is high on ‘wee toffee.’
You see, the NDC is a party that has been built around the personality of the founder, the late J.J. Rawlings. However, over the period, the Party has been able to grow beyond the control of the founder. Despite that, the party still recognize the founder as the arrowhead of the party under whom the rank and file will always rally their support. In the absence of the founder today, John Mahama is the only person who canacan the position of the arrowhead of the party. He has been a Minister, a Parliamentarian, a Vice President and a President. He has seen it all. He was right there as a young man in the formative days of the NDC.
Resource wise, John Mahama has the needed resources this party needs at this point in time to get the Party together for any future elections and party mobilisation.
The man John Mahama is widely marketed, he is a household name and every single day we get to learn that his presidency was much better compared to what we have now under Nana Akufo-Addo. There’s hardly a single constituency in Ghana today where a John Mahama project cannot be pointed to.
At the moment we can’t tell whether or not John Mahama will contest to lead the NDC in 2024. But I personally have no qualms with Mahama leading the party again as Flagbearer. From where I sit, he is the best bet for the party. But even if Mahama is not the Flagbearer, Mahama is the defacto leader of the party since the party does not have a founder. This means that, anyone else running on the ticket of the NDC in 2024 will need the blessings of John Mahama. Such a person will be doing so on the records of John Mahama to be able to run successfully. So it is actually in the interest of anyone who wishes the NDC well, to actually hold John Mahama in high esteem.
Mahama commmands a large support base in the NDC given the fact that, a number of his appointees who remain loyal to him are out there in every branch of the party playing various important roles in the survival of the party. Creating a rift with John Mahama by anyone in the NDC can best be described as a political suicide.
It’ll therefore do a lot of good for everyone to keep calm and allow normal party processes to run their course. From what we learnt from the election and the election petition, it is obvious that the NDC didn’t present a bad candidate, but there are some lapses in the party set up that needs to be looked at and corrected. Any serious minded party member should be getting involved in organizing the base of the party and helping recruit qualified and competent people to ensure that whoever emerges as the Flagbearer has a solid vehicle to carry him/her to victory.
In that light, if this group is really interested in asking about how the NDC collated the results of the 2020 election or how the entire election was conducted by leadership of the NDC, they should be asking questions of the directorate of election and the heads of IT. What has this got to do with the Flagbearer?
Interestingly, it appears this group was put together by one Dela Coffie who has been a close aid to Mrs. Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, wife of the late founder of the party and an avowed hater of John Mahama. Given that Dela Coffie joined Nana Konadu in forming the National Democratic Party (NDP), I wonder what their business is with what goes on in the NDC. It’s in their interest to concentrate on running the NDP. People like Allotey Jacobs, Dela Coffie and Koku Anyidoho who have become friends of the NPP will do anything to bring the NDC down. This is one such tactics they’re employing. Moving forward, there will be lots of these diversionary tactics to bring down the party to satisfy their greedy interest. All well-meaning NDC members must stand together now more than ever to push this party to victory in 2024.
