Former President John Mahama
The planned appointments for some non-elective top positions within the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are brewing tension in the opposition party.
Some national executives are currently on a collision course with former President John Mahama who was alleged to be dictating to the NDC national leaders over who to select for the posts.
The positions up for grabs currently include Director of Elections, Director of Information Technology (IT), Director of International Relations, Director of Research, Director of Communications as well as Director of Special Duties.
However, Mr. Mahama is said to have ‘ordered’ the national executives to halt any appointments until he is selected as flagbearer on Saturday, to the chagrin of the executives.
In what looks like an effort to exert his influence on the party, Mr. Mahama is said to be arguing that if the executives go ahead to make the appointments, he might not work with the appointees when he is finally confirmed as the NDC flag bearer, but pockets of the NDC leaders are prepared to call his bluff.
Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that Mr. Mahama is even threatening to cut funding to the party over the issue.
Sources have alleged that drama unfolded at the NDC’s plush Adabraka national headquarters on February 14, 2019, when the National Executive Committee (NEC) met to consider the appointments.
In the middle of the meeting, the ex-President is said to have sent his former Chief of Staff, Julius Debrah, to ‘gate-crash’ the meeting and demanded a freeze on all appointments until he (Mahama) assumed leadership of the party and decide who he wants to work with.
Some of the ‘rebel’ executives are said to have not taken kindly to the so-called ‘directive’ and they reminded Mr. Mahama’s emissary that they are the ones running the party and therefore would not allow any aspirant to dictate to them.
An obviously disappointed Julius Debrah was said to have left the meeting fuming with anger, threatening never to provide any money for the funding of the activities of the party.
That notwithstanding, the leadership of the party was said to have gone ahead to make the appointments which involved Alex Perceval Segbefia as the NDC’s Director of International Relations, with Elvis Afriyie Ankrah as Director of Elections; Alhaji Rashid, as Director of Research; Bede Ziedeng as Director of Special Duties; Kwame Griffiths as Director of IT and Kakra Essamuah as Director of Communications.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu