"Sympathisers of Mills lack maturity"

The Volta Regional Executives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have described the action by the so-called sympathisers of Prof John Atta Mills, a contestant to the flagbearership of the party, as irresponsible, disgraceful and disrespectful because they have ignored a directive from the hierarchy of the party not to hold any news conference without authority.

They stressed that ignoring the hierarchy of the party had proved that certain disgruntled elements within the party were bent on disintegrating the party for selfish gains.

In a joint statement issued in Ho, Michael Gamor, Francis Ganyaglo and Tony Klutse, organiser, secretary and youth organiser respectively, said the sympathisers of Prof Mills lacked maturity and therefore, were being manipulated by irresponsible people in the party.

Reacting to the news conference held at Ho, during which delegates in the region were asked to massively vote for Prof Mills and not to return to the region if they vote for Dr Botchwey, the other contestant, it explained that now that the party was going through a restructuring exercise to practise internal democracy, there should be fairplay and respect for the party’s hierarchy and no individual or a group of people should, in their own selfish gains, want to disintegrate the NDC.

The statement called on responsible and matured faithful of the NDC to ignore the news conference describing it as bias, ignorant and a rebellion against the hierarchy, which consequences they were already aware of.

This is a display of utmost ignorance, bias and rebellion and should not be taken kindly, and we call on all peace loving members of our great party to dismiss the news conference by a group of disgruntled people who cannot remain focused and co-exist with the rank and file,” it observed.

“In fact, we are very surprised to hear from a group calling itself Concerned NDC electorate from the Volta Region who are naïve and ignorant in contemporary Ghanaian politics but being aided by some peeved elements to entrench democracy in the NDC,” the statement added.

It observed that all delegates to the forthcoming special delegates’ congress to elect a flagbearer were matured enough and well focused to discern after meeting the contestants and could decide according to who to cast their votes for.

The statement noted that it was a figment of their imagination for the sympathisers to assert that some party executives had been influenced either individually or collectively with money to vote for a particular contestant and described it as a baseless and unfounded.

Painstaking investigations conducted by The Evening News gathered that fears has gripped the camp of Prof Mills as they are expected to face a stiff challenge, hence the negative propaganda against Dr Botchwey.

Again, there are indications that some staunch supporters of the NDC are unhappy about the way the founder and chairman of the Council of Elders of the party, ex-President Jerry John Rawlings, has been openly campaigning for Prof Mills because his action is sending wrong signals that Prof Mills would never be his own man when given the NDC slot or elected President of the Republic of Ghana in 2004.