Senior journalist, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, says responsibility for the National Democratic Congress (NDC)’s defeat in the 2016 elections must be a collective one.
“The former President [John Mahama] should take his part and so are the others,” he told Samson Lardy Anyenini on Joy FM/MultiTV’s news analysis programme Newsfile Saturday.
Some senior members of the NDC have taken to the media attacking key party functionaries and the former President for the humiliating defeat suffered in the 2016 presidential poll.
The attack was initiated by NDC Yunyoo Member of Parliament (MP), Joseph Naabu Bipoba, who told Joy News Mr Mahama was an incompetent leader who surrounded himself with a group of inexperienced people.
He took a dead aim at former Communications Minister, Dr Edward Omane Boamah whom he described as a political lightweight who could not proffer any good advice to the former President, asking, “Omane Boamah, what experience does he have in politics?”
Former Interior Minister and Mahama’s ally, Mark Wayongo, said, “I think the former President tried to satisfy a whole lot of people, but it didn’t go the way it should have gone and I am not ready to talk about the issues in the media.”
But former NDC National Organiser, Yaw Boateng Gyan, wants the issues to be discussed, saying the President John Mahama-led government alienated persons who held contrary opinions.
“Believe me…the NDC was much more divided than the NPP but we pretended as if all was well and decided to talk about the NPP’s troubles,” he told a Kumasi-based Abusua FM on Wednesday.
“If we had paid attention to what people, our own party people, were saying, I am telling you the NDC wouldn’t have been in opposition by now.”
This was corroborated by former NDC National Chairman, Dr. Kwabena Agyei, who noted the former President surrounded himself with praise-singers because of his intolerance for divergent views.
While sections of Ghanaians have registered their worry over the rising tension in the NDC, National Organiser, Kofi Adams, said the development demonstrates the party remains a vibrant one.
But Mr Baako said the apparent confusion in the NDC is a direct reflection of the pain party members are going through after their stunning loss to the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).
“It’s clear that they lost the election [because] they were not focused in terms of the kind of message for the electorate,” he said. “They must accept collective responsibilities.”
He said the NDC sold the message the Ghanaians were not ready to buy so it has to learn to deal with its challenges without letting them escalate.
Mr Baako said the NDC members would not have made public their frustrations had the party won the election because was seen to be united when it was in power.
NDC MP for North Tongu, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, described the current infighting in the party as “passing wind” which will fade out in the coming days. “It is a momentary slide.”
He said what the NDC is going through cannot be compared to “violent and bloody” events that characterised the NPP when it was in opposition.
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