The frustrations of four NPP aspirants

Nana Akufo-Addo

Akufo-Addo's aide hits back
By Bismark Bebli &  Yussif Kewura
Nana Akufo-Addo
A leading Member of Nana Akufo-Addo's Victory 2012 campaign Team, Mr. Boakye Agyarko has hit back at the four presidential aspirants for taking issues of the party to the public domain, instead of using the party structures to address their grievances.

He described the 'modus operandi' used by the four aspirants as a 'childish' approach and appealed to the National Executive Committee (NEC) to treat it with magnanimous contempt.

According to him, it was unfortunate that when the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is currently in turmoil and Ghanaians are crying for the return of the NPP to redeem them, the four aspirants would resort to unorthodox means of seeking redress with an attempt to disregard the party structures.

'It is a show of bad faith to disrespect the party structure and the constitution. We did not resort to press conferences when seventeen of us were vying for the presidential slot. If we had done that the party would have collapsed by now,' he said.

'A this juncture, I will ignore it with contempt. What are they seeking for? Now that the NDC is in turmoil, it is incumbent on us to hold ourselves together because Ghanaians are looking up to us and I will suggest that the party ignore it and treat it with magnanimous contempt and forge ahead.

You don't need to punish them. This is because any attempt to punish them would bring some sort of confusion and the NDC would laugh at us because that is what they want,' he claimed.

Speaking in an interview with this paper, Mr. Boayke Agyarko dismissed claims that Nana Akufo-Addo was aware of the planned press conference but did not delegate any of his representatives to attend.

He said despite the fact that the actions of the four presidential aspirants were irritating, the party should remain focused and work towards a successful congress.

He was, however, shocked about the actions of the four aspirants, saying that they have met ten days ago and the issues of the irregularities were brought onto the table, and it was discussed to the satisfaction of all.

The four NPP presidential hopefuls, Mr. Alan John Kwadwo Kyerematen,                 Prof. Frimpong Kwabena-Boateng, Hon. Isaac Osei and Apostle John K. Kodua, through their representatives expressed disquiet about what they described as 'seeming lack of clarity in constituting an acceptable register for the conduct of the presidential primaries.'

To the worried and concerned aspirants, the digital register been adopted by the leadership of the party was in a state of disarray, with significant errors, stressing further that any attempt by the  election committee to go ahead with the unfinished digital register would create anarchy, confusion and above all disenfranchise potential delegates.

'In all fairness, we must acknowledge the major efforts the party had embarked on to consolidate the various constituency albums into one digital register. With hindsight however, perhaps that laudable process ought not to have been done as part of this particular primary, given the time constraints.

'This is because the first draft of the digital register received on the 16th June 2010 at 80% completion had less than a 60% photo complement.

Moreover, it was in a state of disarray with significant errors including some photos with different names, photos of women with men's names and vice versa, as well as numerous gaps with no photos at all.'

But Mr. Boakye Agyarko, who contested the presidential primary of the party in 2007 said, he could not understand the posture and channels being used by the aspirants to seek a redress.

'I think that it is bad faith. We, the victory for 2012 campaign team would not do anything like that. We shall channel our grievances through the appropriate channels of the party. We believe that is the only way we can move forward as a party,' he said.

The General Secretary of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Mr. John Owusu Afriyie, aka Sir John has also commented on the press conference held by the representatives of the four presidential aspirants of the party.

Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle in Accra yesterday, Sir John said the press conference was not necessary because the issues the aspirants were speaking about were being addressed.

According to the General Secretary, upon receiving the letter of complaint, signed by the four peeved aspirants, the party invited them to a meeting to discuss the matter, but they could not wait and went ahead with the conference.

He revealed that the voter register had already been validated and submitted to the Electoral Commission and that the complainants could have easily found out from the EC which they did not do.

He was of the view that they should have picked the register and studied it before raising any concern, than wasting their breath to organize the press conference.

On the concern of lack of communication between the aspirants and the party, Sir John disclosed that the party was always in touch with the aspirants or sometimes with their agents.

He declined to accept that the four aspirants were fighting Nana, saying 'they are fighting the process of the election'.