Blame Nketia for NDC's Kumbungu defeat

Malik Kweku Baako, Managing Editor Crusading Guide newspaper, says the ruling NDC should partly blame its national General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia for the party’s defeat in Tuesday’s by-election at Kumbungu in the Northern Region.

The party has been apportioning all sort of reasons that might have accounted for their loss, but Mr Baako suggested on Joy FM’s Newsfile Saturday that the laidback attitude of Asiedu Nketia towards the election could not be overlooked.

The Kumbungu seat which had been held by the NDC for decades became vacant when Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni abdicated his seat following his appointment as the Secretary-General of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP)States.

For the first time under the Fourth Republic, a party other than the NDC won that seat to represent the people in Parliament. Mr Amadu Moses Yahaya of the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP)won with 13,029 votes to beat his closest contender, Alhaji Imoro Yakubu Kakpagu of the NDC who polled a little over 11,000 votes.

“Internal wrangling that’s what we have been told. Well if you have the whole General Secretary having turned himself into a chief court reporter for party foot soldiers…you wouldn’t have time to deal with internal party wrangling. It might have been one of the reasons [why NDC lost the seat],” he said.

He reiterated his previous assessment of President Mahama’s 100 days in office which he commented that there was nothing to write home about. He remarked he was not surprised the party lost the by-election in the face of many Ghanaians who are “hugely challenged in so many matters. So that must be part of it.

“Despondency, discontent, complacency, dissatisfaction across aboard have been part of it,” he said.

He however charged the CPP to focus on getting more parliamentary seats and stop paying attention to the presidential ambition.

Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, Minister for Lands and Natural Resources described the loss as disturbing, coming on the back of the fact that the party lost about 10 seats in the 2012 election.

“But was it unexpected? No, it was not. Why because when you go down, on the ground, the party is so fragmented…This is an indication that we have a lot of work to do," he said.

He however vehemently denied that the defeat has something to do with the performance of the Mahama administration.