Former President John Dramani Mahama
Social Democratic Forum, a group affiliated to opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has caused uproar in the party by claiming that plans by former President John Dramani Mahama to lead the party again to the 2020 presidential election are being thwarted from within.
They attacked NDC gurus from the Volta Region, which is the stronghold of the party and mentioned former President Jerry John Rawlings as the mastermind.
The group, in a statement issued by its spokespersons- Manan Mustapha and Alhassan Issahaku, played the tribal card and virtually pitched NDC supporters from the northern regions against their counterparts from the Volta Region.
The group also described their own NDC stalwarts from the northern regions as “reckless and ambitious Northern politicians who are displaying a ‘deafening’ silence on the Volta attacks on Mr. Mahama.”
“We have remained silent on our party’s internal matters since our painful defeat at the hands of the incompetent NPP in December 2016. Prior to the December elections, we repeatedly raised alarm on the clandestine Volta conspiracy to deny the charismatic JM a second term in office,” they said.
Pre-Election Plot
“We intercepted and made public, several intelligence pointing to collaboration between the then opposition NPP and several NDC stalwarts in the Volta Region. The conspirators included former President Rawlings, whose hatred against JM, is public knowledge, and prominent chiefs in the Volta Region such as Togbe Afedge, who has been hugely rewarded by the corrupt-laden Akufo-Addo Government with the board chairmanship of NIB, a state bank.
The group alleged that the purported ‘conspirators’ included MPs like Richard Quashigah (Keta), Fifi Kwetey (Ketu South) and party folks such as Kwabena Adjei, Obed Asamoah, both former chairmen, as well as Aseidu Nketia, NDC General secretary and Yaw Boateng Gyan, a former National Organizer.
“We warned that in the event of a JM defeat in the election , the totality of the North shall in the future retaliate against a Volta candidate or a Volta-backed candidate. The evil axes of the Volta Region, in spite of our warnings, persisted and succeeded in their grand scheme to deny JM a second term in office. We thought that having achieved their wish, this evil cult would allow the party the peace to painfully rebuild its structures to boot out the super incompetent Nana Addo Government.”
Adabraka Collaborators
The group said recently the attacks on former President Mahama has intensified, adding that it’s being led by people they termed as ‘discredited so-called founder.”
“In the last week, we noted with dismay the emergence, once again, of the power conscious Volta crooks and their collaborators at Adabraka. They have started an offensive on the humble personality of H. E. John Mahama,” they claimed, adding that“the discredited so-called founder set the stage by throwing wild allegations against the much-expected comeback of Ghana’s savior, JM into the 2020 race.”
They added “this has been followed by Victor Gbeho, Ken Dzirasah and Richard Quashigah, whose tenure as propaganda secretary witness unprecedented incompetence. Many Volta chiefs and MPs are still very much active in the plot to fight JM’s comeback.”
“We have seriously interpreted these actions as an attack on the North. They have since 1992 pretended to love the North. It must be made clear that you cannot love the North while constantly agonizing the North’s greatest figure in the NDC’s history.”
The group also said “their democratic right to support the failed Alabi project is not a right to attack H. E. John Mahama. If H. E. John Mahama is failure or unmarketable, we wonder where we would place Victor Gbeho or Ken Dzirasah in the scheme of things.”
By William Yaw Owusu