The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, may not after all go unopposed in the party’s congress next month.
A 44-year-old branch chairman of the party in the Obuasi Municipality in the Ashanti Region has filed his nomination to challenge Mr. Asiedu Nketia.
Abdul Ishaq Farrakhan in an interview with Citi News accused the incumbent General Secretary of neglecting the grassroot members of the party.
He claimed that Asiedu Nketia has failed to stand up for the interest of the party’s members at the local level, who contributed largely to the NDC’s presidential victories in 2008 and 2012.
The aspiring General Secretary stressed that although the incumbent is popular among the rank and file of the party, it cannot guarantee victory for Mr Nketia in the party’s upcoming national congress.
“He is already holding that position and I am taking it from him. I am already popular. The whole Ghana, all the 10 regions I have been there; so popularity is not being about the General Secretary…I am known,” he touted.
Farrakhan also discounted Mr. Nketia’s claim that he led the party to win the 2008 and 2012 general elections.
“It is never true,” he fumed, adding that “Asiedu Nketia has never won elections on his own. It is team work including all the delegates and the grassroot people. Ask yourself if General Mosquito has ever gone to the polling station to fight on behalf of this party.”
He recalled that during the last two general elections, “we fought people; people fought us, so this is the time. We are telling the NDC members that we went down to the grassroot. It is not the Ministers; it’s not the big men and the bourgeois. They are not working; it is the servants; we are working for the party.”
The confident Farrakhan served notice to all national executives of the party that the grassroot members are poised to win the 2016 general elections; therefore, any person who is likely to hinder that plan will be voted out and replaced by a competent person.
“We are making sure that we will win one touch, so they shouldn’t sit down there in Accra and tell us that it is them who are working,” he said.
He also cautioned persons calling him to step down due to lack of experience to desist from doing so because “I am 44 years old and…I have experience and we are working.”
Meanwhile, about 110 persons have picked up nomination forms to contest various national executive positions of the NDC.
24 national executive positions are being contested, and they include the National Chairperson, six National Vice-Chairpersons, General Secretary and his two deputies and National Organizer; and his two deputies.
The rest are; the Propaganda Secretary and his two deputies, Women Organizer and her two deputies; Youth Organizer and his two deputies and Treasurer and his deputy.
