NDC member urges party to ban Mahama’s unity walks
Mr Stephen Ashitey Adjei, an executive member of the Tema East branch of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called on the leadership of the party to ban former President Mahama’s unity walks.
“Every episode of the unity walks draws criticism from factions within the party. Former President John Mahama who leads these unity walks tends to enjoy the platform alone as he is usually the only one allowed to address these walks.”
Mr Ashitey Adjei who is popularly known as Moshake was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency on their plans for the 2020 elections.
He said even though the walks were dubbed “Unity Walks,” they were rather dividing the party.
“Apart from Mahama, every other person who addresses party faithful is a devotee of Mahama, where is the unity in that?”
Moshake noted that in spite of all the unity walks, the NDC’s Founder, former President Rawlings, was estranged from the party, while he had since carried along other elders of the party, leaving the party more divided than it was.
The Tema East executive member also pointed out that even though the organizers of the walks claimed they were unity walks, the walks were usually used by followers of former President Mahama to antagonise his perceived opponents in the party.
“During the Greater Accra version of the unity walk for instance, we all witnessed how some devotees of former President Mahama used the platform to insult Prof. Joshua Alabi, one of the flagbearer aspirants.
“Following the recent unity walk held in Wa, it has been circulating on social media that Hon. Alban Bagbin has been disgraced by the massive turnout at the event even though he himself was not around, because the Upper West is the backyard of Bagbin.
“There are even some Mahama fanatics who claimed that Hon. Bagbin had secretly gone on the ground and tried to get his supporters and people of the region to boycott the walk because it was being led by former President Mahama, all of which are lies that inflame passions and tear the party apart even more.”
He said Mr Bagbin’s retention as MP since the country returned to multi-party democracy was conspicuous that he was the most popular politician in the Upper West Region and it made sense to believe that his many supporters in the region also took part in the walk.
Mr Adjei said, because of the disunity that the unity walks were causing in the NDC, it would be advisable for the party’s leadership to ban them and proposed that in place of the unity walks, something better and more unifying should be set up with the party.
“For instance, it will be more profitable to organise unity talks and reconciliatory party assemblies where everybody will have the opportunity to speak up. The loss we suffered in 2016 is unprecedented and the causal factors still remain unresolved as many who were ignored by the Mahama regime still remain angry.”
He also proposed that as a starting point, the party could rather focus more on the implementation of the recommendations in the Kwesi Botchwey committee report rather than the unity walks.
Source: GNA