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21.09.2018 Headlines

NDC Presidential Aspirants Warned

By Ghanaian Chronicle
NDC Presidential Aspirants Warned
21.09.2018 LISTEN


From Thomas Agbenyegah Adzey, Kumasi .
A former Ghana Ambassador to the USA, Daniel Ohene Agyekum, has appealed to all those vying for the flagbearership position of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to desist from the smear campaign against one another.

According to him, such practices only deepen the acrimony and weaken the foundation of the party.

He said people who want to be voted for to lead the party into the 2020 elections should convince the party about what they are capable of doing, and desist from bringing former president John Mahama down, or prevent him from contesting.

Mr. Ohene Agyekum emphasised that it was undemocratic for anybody in the party to prevent former president Mahama from contesting, and stressed that it is only the NDC, as a party, which can prevent John Mahama from contesting, and not any individual in the party.

The former Ashanti Regional Minister and NDC Regional Chairman, who is now the campaign manager of ex-President Mahama’s NDC flagbearership bid, expressed this concern on Kumasi FM 104.1 morning show programme last Thursday, and said it is only former president Mahama who can rescue the party, and Ghanaians from the hardship they are going through at the now, and advised the party supporters not to allow themselves to be convinced that John Mahama can no longer lead the party in 2020.

Mr. Ohene Agyekum, who is the immediate past Board Chairman of the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD), cited countries like Benin, Argentina, Chile and Malaysia, where sitting presidents were voted out of power but returned thereafter to perform creditably.

The diplomat cum politician disclosed that all the contestants seeking to lead the party are his good friends, colleagues, and above all, members of the party, and gave the assurance that ex-president Mahama’s Campaign Management team would never run any of them down.

He disagreed with the suggestion by Agudey, the Kumasi Morning Show Host, that the flagbearer contestants were a bunch of “eleven thieves”, in obvious reference to NDC General Secretary, Mr. Asiedu Nketia’s, previous reference to the bunch of “19 thieves” during the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer race sometime ago, stressing that all the 11 contestants are noble men, well-educated, full of integrity, and qualified to lead the party.

Touching on the performance of the NPP government, Mr. Agyekum pointed out that the chickens were coming back to roost, as lies and the unfulfilled campaign promises, coupled with the hardships that traders and spare parts dealers now go through, is a clear testimony.

Mr. Ohene Agyekum minced no words by stressing that the 1D1F and the “One Village, One Dam” programme does not “make any economic sense to me,” explaining that the dynamics of land acquisition, raw materials, labour and rain patterns across the country make the proposal unattainable, adding that not many villages in the country were endowed with water sources to sustain this.

He explained that the NDC government was not against the Free Senior High School (SHS) policy, but believed the necessary capacity for the programme needed to be built before it takes off, which were the reasons for the construction of the E-blocks.

He said this was what the NPP government failed to realise, which was the reason they have to resort to the double track system, because the facilities were not available.

Mr. Ohene Agyekum boasted that the NDC government constructed the best roads in Kumasi, including schools and hospitals, some of which were former president Mahama’s legacies, retorting that patching up or rehabilitating deteriorated Kumasi roads is a normal thing to do.

He said former president John Mahama is “already marketed” and that, “the devil you know is better than an angel you don’t know”, explaining that former president Mahama was not rejected by Ghanaians because he could not do the job, but because of the lies and deceitful promises the NPP peddled.

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