Posted: Daily Guide |Monday, 09 August 2010
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Ivor Kobina Greenstreet
A statement by the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) has started a wild fire in the National Democratic Congress (NDC), threatening the very foundation of the ruling party.
In reaction to a statement by the NDC’s Propaganda Secretary, Richard Quashigah, which sought to liken the CPP’s National Youth Organiser, Kwabena Bomfeh to an NPP mole, CPP General Secretary, Ivor Kobina Greenstreet flayed the ruling party, stating that “if criticism is the yardstick by which NDC determines what a mole is, then the real mole the NDC should be concerned with is their own loose cannon; founder Jerry John Rawlings.”
Quashigah had accused Kabila of being a mole for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), following the latter’s decision to take the STX Korean deal to court for interpretation.
But barely 24 hours after the CPP issued the statement to deflate the NDC Propaganda Secretary’s assertions, a splinter group within the NDC, the Youth for Leadership in Ghana (YFL) which does not only identify itself with the former President, but also feels beholden to him, issued a counter statement which questions the allegiance of President Mills to the NDC as a party.
A statement signed and issued by General Secretary of the group, SaCut Amenga-Etego, wondered why President Mills had devoted much of his 18 months in office to honour Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, instead of Rawlings, who formed and nurtured the NDC to its present stage where he (Mills) had got the opportunity to become its leader.
According to the YFL, “for the CPP to carefully craft a statement that attacks the personal integrity of the NDC founder while absolving the President and NDC leader Prof. Mills, exposes an extreme form of treachery that cannot be hidden from good Ghanaians.
“Our understanding of the CPP statement makes it clear to us that such NCP (National Convention Party) elements who formed the progressive alliance with Kow Nkensen Arkaah with President Rawlings for the 1992 general election are still embittered by the breakaway in 1996 that saw Prof. Mills running for Vice President with President Rawlings.
“The CPP could not even hide the agenda of the schemers as it clearly deviated from a debate about the STX Korea housing deal between the Propaganda Secretary of the NDC on one hand, and the CPP youth organizer on the other hand into a deliberate attack on the NDC founder while at the same time, absolving President Mills of blame in the same statement, thereby separating President Mills from the NDC and its founder.”
After studying the content of the statement from the CPP, the YFL said “we are convinced that such a statement could only be part of that grand scheme orchestrated by certain defunct National Convention Party (NCP) elements within both the CPP and the NDC to divide the NDC with the hope of taking over the power base of the NDC.”
For this reason, the YFL said people including the Ahwois, and the Totobi Kwakyes were collaborating with the likes of Kwesi Pratt and Ivor Greenstreet to tamper with the foundation of the NDC by scheming to denigrate and openly attack its founder.
“The YFL is wondering if it is the case that President Mills is actually encouraging these ‘alien elements’ to try to divide the NDC that put him in power” and “we are also still trying to come to terms with the reasons for CPP’s worry over embarrassments to President Mills while having no qualms in openly calling the NDC founder ‘a loose cannon’?”
The leadership of YFL asked: “Is it also the case that President Mills spending his first eighteen months in office engaging in various activities to honour the CPP founder Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is part of such grand machinations to sell out the NDC to these scheming and disgruntled NCP elements who obviously have become his close confidants?
“Why would the CPP be so mean as to dishonour the NDC founder Jerry Rawlings with such an open attack without direct provocation at a time when the NDC government under President Mills has committed so much national resource into the honour of the CPP founder?”
They therefore denounced what they described as a ‘carefully planned and projected agenda’ by Rawlings’ detractors, with a stern warning that “such intrigue will not divide the NDC for their benefit today or ever.”
The group also cautioned President Mills to be wary of these intrigues and their dire consequences for his presidency since they have vowed to “defend the Jerry Rawlings legacy- the legacy they want to either usurp or destroy - even if it will cost us an arm and a leg.”