Isaac Afreh (right) with the NDC Ashanti Regional Manifesto Committee members
CLAIMS by the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Bernard Antwi Boasiako, aka Wontumi, that he has planted moles in the Ashanti Regional National Democratic Congress (NDC) executives seem to be true.
This follows fresh reports that one Isaac Afreh, a banker, who is a card-bearing member of the NPP in the Atwima Nwabiagya North Constituency in the Ashanti Region, has been appointed as a member of the NDC Ashanti Regional Manifesto Committee for the 2020 polls.
The inclusion of Mr. Afreh, who contested NPP Atwima Nwabiagya North Constituency Secretary position but lost narrowly in 2012, into the Ashanti Regional NDC Manifesto Committee has sparked uproar in the largest opposition political party in the region.
Some of the NDC members have accused the party leadership, including the NDC Presidential Candidate, John Dramani Mahama, of not doing enough background checks before appointing a known NPP member to be part of such an important committee.
According to the aggrieved NDC members, they believe that Mr. Afreh may be one of the numerous NPP members that Chairman Wontumi claims to have infiltrated the camp of the NDC with in order to leak the party’s top secrets to the NPP.
Afreh’s Defence
Commenting about the issue on Kumasi-based Fox FM on Monday, Mr. Afreh admitted that he was once a staunch member of the NPP and he even contested the NPP constituency secretary position at Atwima Nwabiagya North but lost.
According to him, some top members of the NPP in the constituency frustrated him and that led to his defeat, and so he decided to quit the NPP in 2017. He, however, surprisingly said he was yet to tender in his resignation letter from the NPP.
“I have not resigned officially from the NPP but I ceased to be a member of the NPP and joined the NDC in 2017,” he said, alleging that some NPP members in the party in the Atwima Nwabiagya North Constituency approached him to contest positions in the NPP in 2016 “and I said no to them.”
Mr. Afreh said he was not yet a card-bearing member of the opposition NDC and added that the party leadership saw nothing wrong with it when they appointed him to the Ashanti Regional Manifesto Committee of the party. He said “they are still working on my NDC card.”
According to him, he became a member of the NPP in 1996 and served the party at TESCON and other levels but he finally decided to leave the NPP to pitch camp with the NDC in 2017 because he realised that the NDC, unlike the NPP, accepts and respects the views of its members.
NDC Exposes Isaac Afreh
The NDC Atwima Nwabiagya North Constituency Youth Organizer, Charles Asaasin, said on the same network that “Isaac Afreh is a staunch NPP member in this constituency and two weeks ago he attended our meeting and said is joining the NDC.”
He said the NDC executives in the Atwima Nwabiagya North Constituency were planning to organise a press conference for Isaac Afreh to officially announce that he was quitting the NPP to join the NDC, only to hear that Isaac Afreh is already a member of the NDC Manifesto Committee.
NPP Chairman On Afreh
The Atwima Nwabiagya North Constituency Chairman of the NPP, Nana Dwomoh, also said on Fox FM that so far as he was concerned, Isaac Afreh, a native of Barekese, was still member of the NPP, who once contested the NPP secretary position in the constituency.
“He is a banker and he has been an active member of our party for so many years. If he has indeed resigned from the NPP, then he was supposed to write his resignation letter but he has not done that therefore we still see him as part of the NPP,” he indicated.
FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr.,Kumasi