Stephen Ashitey Adjei, the plain-talking National Democratic Congress (NDC) Executive member for Tema East, has called on his party to caution former President Mahama, “over the extensive corrosion that his leadership has brought to the winsomeness of the NDC.”
Mr. Ashitey Adjei, who is popularly called Moshake, says in a write-up that the NDC is experiencing its lowest days yet in the history of Ghana politics, and it is all because of Mr. Mahama’s mishandle of power.
“What we are going through at the moment is worse than what we even went through under the Presidency of Kufuor,” he wrote.
According to him, “while our days in opposition under Kufuor were the result of the circumstance of time, in this case, the whole experience is retribution from a certain John Mahama’s mishandling of power.”
And for Moshake, the way to bring the issue to reckoning is to suspend Mr. Mahama from the party and investigate what made him mishandle power so carelessly and abysmally.
“Why is he the only NDC leader who so mishandled power that our party disintegrated right under his leadership? This is an issue, a ghost of an issue that needs to be exorcised so that we can truly heal, why did Mahama neglect NDC executives to the extent that we did not benefit? Why were Rawlings and others including E.T Mensah and Dr. Tony Aidoo mismanaged? True party people did not benefit at all but strangers rather benefited?
This is not the first time Stephen Ashitey Adjei has highlighted John Mahama as the problem person for the NDC. In the past, he has asked for apologies from the former President for allegedly taking advice from former President Kufuor.
After the 2016 election defeat, Mahama’s family said he was not going to contest again but when the Ashanti Regional Chairman of NPP and a loyalist of Kufour, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, alias Chairman Wuntumi, ordered Mr. Mahama to contest, he obeyed him and contested for the 2020 presidential ticket of the NDC, why does he listen to NPP gurus to the detriment of our great party, the NDC?
He attributes the NDC’s ultimate loss of power in 2016 to what he says are glaring mistakes in power, including stirring up disaffection for the NDC among Ghanaian workers.
According to Stephen Ashitey Adjei, the former President had hurt the image and winsomeness of the NDC badly when he had taken unpopular decisions such as stoppage of teacher and nursing trainee allowances, “at the advice of Kufuor.”
Then when Ghanaians had complained about those policies, Mahama had replied that he had caught a dead goat syndrome, a phrase that became a powerful campaign tool in the hands of the NDC’s opponents, the NPP in 2016.
“In our party’s constitution, there is provision for the discipline of members whose conduct lowers the image of the NDC in the estimation of the public. Articles 46(I). 46(6) and 46(8)(b) of the Party’s Constitution have been used to suspend others who harmed the party with their misconduct, what about Mr. Mahama? What is more harmful than taking advice from a former President of your main opponent to the detriment of your party?”
Mosahke adds, “If you ask me, his conduct as President has done more harm to the NDC brand than any of the other people who were suspended in the name of articles 46(I). 46(6) and 46(8)(b).”
He, therefore, called for the suspension of John Mahama from the NDC. “Suspend John Mahama immediately.”
The call comes at a time that Mr. Mahama appears to be angling for the 2024 flagbearership of the NDC.
Moshake accuses the former President of seeking to contest again, “to satisfy his political godfather, former President Kufuor.”
He reiterates that, “Mr. Kufuor wants the NDC to stay in opposition forever and he knows that Mahama’s leadership of the party will ensure that and so he is THE ONE ADVISING John Mahama to continue running for the leadership of NDC.”
Stephen Ashitey Adjei dares the NDC, “to suspend Mr. Mahama and conduct an independent investigation into his relationship with Kufuor and see if what I have been saying is not true; they will find out that all the mistakes he made as President to bring us into opposition were based on advice from Mr. Kufuor.”