NDC Probes Mahama Challenger

George Boateng picking his presidential nomination form at the NDC headquarters on monday

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it will launch investigations into the circumstances surrounding the issuance of presidential nomination forms to a party activist, George Boateng, to challenge President John Mahama for the 2016 NDC presidential slot.

It has been alleged that George Boateng’s nomination forms were issued out to him by an accountant at the party office and so the National Executive Committee (NEC) will launch investigation into it to unearth the truth.

According to Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, a National Vice Chairman of the party, the NDC secretariat had not officially opened presidential nominations for party members.

'I can confidently say that the party has not released officially our presidential nomination form to anybody,' he told Peace Fm.

Ofosu Ampfo claims that it is only the General Secretary who can issue presidential nomination forms. 'It is an internal matter which is under investigation…It is not a form that has been legally sealed by the party…If he wants to come, he has to do it again,' he pointed out.

He said until the forms were sealed by the General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia, no party member could claim he had picked his or her nomination forms to stand against the president.

The decision by 45-year-old George Boateng to pick nomination forms to challenge President John Mahama during the party's November 7 primaries has stoked fire in the ruling party.

What therefore started as a seeming political prank by the youth organiser of the party at Oyarifa, an Accra suburb, and his eventual picking of nomination forms when the date was due, had prompted an emergency meeting to decide on what punitive measures to exact on the accountant who purportedly gave out the forms to the freight forwarder in the first place.

Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, popularly called General Mosquito, who did not hide his disdain for the man's ambition and reportedly asked his (Asiedu Nketia's) clerk to tell him (man) when he turns up to pick the forms that he (Asiedu Nketia) was not in town, was said to be seething with anger.

The General Secretary has vehemently claimed that George Boateng had after all, no nomination forms in his possession, even when the man posed with the documents to make his point on the front page of DAILY GUIDE yesterday.

'He has not picked any form. I heard he has been in my office but I told my clerk that I am currently not in Accra. It is not true that anybody has picked a nomination form for the presidential primary.

'That man should be sent to the Pantang Hospital because he is suffering. He has never called me as he claims,' Mosquito said.

But Boateng is adamant about his claims of picking forms and working towards unseating the president, dispelling also rumours that he is married to three women.

'No. Everyone wants to be my wife,' he laughs. 'But I am married to only one woman and I have seven children.' Boateng can therefore equally compete with the president who officially also has seven children.

He gleefully told a television station that he paid an amount of GH¢1,000 after picking the nomination forms, which is now the subject of controversy in the party at the headquarters level.

President Mahama – the man he says he wants to unseat – he said, had made someone to pick nomination forms for him and to pay on his (Mahama's) behalf – similar documents he (Boateng) is touting. He claims the payment was made to the accountant of the party, the same person he (Boateng) made his payment to.

The period before the September 10 deadline for the submission of nomination forms is one of anxiety and edginess as Mr. Boateng grants interesting interviews to the media who are lapping same with gusto, although much to the worry of the party leadership.

Sounding more like a political maverick, he says he has constituted his cabinet, made up of what he claims 'incorruptible astute citizens' ahead of ascension to power.