Haruna Breaks Down

•To Quit NDC?

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) Youth Organiser and MP for Tamale South, Haruna Iddrisu, is fighting a political battle of his life.

With an accusation from his party that he feeds the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) with insider information, Haruna who has been battling with an allegation of assassination plot on his life, broke his “golden silence” yesterday, fighting spiritedly now to tackle the accusation of disloyalty to the NDC.

“I will survive it,” he asserted.
The eloquent Tamale South MP, who doubles as Minority Spokesman on Communications, got emotional on air when confronted with the accusation of playing a fifth columnist in the NDC.

“My loyalty to the NDC is religious. I don't know why some people want to push me out of the party,” Haruna declared on a number of radio stations yesterday.

He lamented with a voice bespeaking his psychological ordeal at the hands of some NDC apparatchiks whom he sees as trying to push him out of a grouping he had always defended to the hilt.

DAILY GUIDE can confirm that Haruna nearly walked out of a crisis meeting chaired by the party chairman, Dr. Kwabena Adjei on Tuesday, which mounted pressure on him to deny the assassination story.

The Tamale South MP is said to have suffered embarrassing jeers and boos of women who were specifically detailed to the venue by some party gurus.

When confronted by Radio Gold with what happened at Tuesday's meeting, the MP evaded the question, saying, it was against party rules to speak about discussions at meetings.

DAILY GUIDE learnt that at the meeting, some party members suggested that he was the source of the media publications, labeling him a mole in the party.

Media reports had indicated that Haruna Iddrisu had been marked down for attack for not doing enough for the NDC.

However, struggling to defend himself, Haruna said he smelled a well-orchestrated conspiracy to kick him out of the NDC, which he had served loyally since the party lost the 2000 elections.

The Youth Organiser's accusers claimed he was the source of the media leak of the NDC's recent family meeting held at the Coco Beach Hotel, Nungua, where the party founder lambasted the flagbearer, Prof John Evans Atta Mills.

Even though the NDC denied the publication about the meeting, inside sources told DAILY GUIDE the party was embarrassed by the leakage, with people close to Mr. Rawlings pointing accusing fingers at Haruna.

The Tamale South MP, however, denied any knowledge about the leakage, pointing out that he could not have been the source.

According to him, he joined the meeting at 3pm after attending a forum organised by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) for political parties from Togo, where he served as a resource person.

Hon Iddrisu explained further that he could not have been the source of the leakage since he was not there when the former president addressed the participants and poured venom on the party leadership, including the accusation that the party's MPs had been bribed by the national security apparatus.

He therefore challenged anybody who had the information that he was on the payroll of the national security apparatus to come forward and prove it.

“I was not part of the meeting from the beginning. I joined at 3pm and I could not have heard what took place,” he emphasised.

It was heartbreaking, he said, to learn that he had been labeled a paid agent of the NPP, stressing that it was a machination of some people in the NDC to discredit him.

Haruna intimated that he would advise himself at the appropriate time since joining a political party was a voluntary act.

The NDC Youth Organiser stated that in the event of quitting politics, he would go into private legal practice, pointing out that he was not ready to substitute his life for political expediency.

As a child, the Minority Spokesperson said, he lost his father, so was not ready to leave behind fatherless babies.

Haruna, who played down on the assassination plot on his life, however challenged the media houses that broke the story to substantiate it.
“There is no basis for me to accept the publication until it is established,” he stated.

The MP maintained what he described as a “golden silence”, to enable him consult with his people, imams and friends.

Asking the authors of the article to provide the basis for the publication, he said,
“I challenge the media organisations concerned to make a full disclosure of the plot.

That is the only basis to find out whether such a criminal conspiracy exists,” he indicated.

However, Egbert Faibille, Managing Editor of the Ghanaian Observer, whose paper published the alleged assassination story, stated that he owed no responsibility to Haruna to compel him to disclose the faces behind the diabolic plot to liquidate the Tamale South MP.

At the appropriate time, he stated, he would come out with the full story.