It is unfortunate to attribute NDC’s 2016 defeat to only me – Sidi Abubakar

Former National Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Congress, Sidi Abubakar says it is wrong for anyone to blame him for the defeat of John Mahama and the NDC in the 2016 elections.

He made this statement prior to losing his bid to contest the 2020 elections as parliamentary candidate of the NDC for the Madina Constituency to legal practitioner, Francis Xavier Sosu Saturday 24th August.

Describing instances of people pointing fingers at him for the party’s defeat in the 2016 general elections as unfortunate, Mr Abubakar said, the party leadership and structure worked together as a team during the 2016 elections and will therefore not be fair for him to be singled out for the parties defeat.

He further stated that, majority of the people he had to work with as youth organiser still hold various positions in the party.

“As I’m talking to you right now, the very team that we worked together is the team that are still at the helm of affairs as far as NDC is concerned.”

He made mention of names such as General Secretary of the party Johnson Asiedu Nketia, current Chairman Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo and then deputy to him, who now holds position as the Deputy National Organiser of the party Kobby Barlon as some of the people who worked as party executives during the 2016 elections.

“So for somebody to say that they are attributing the entire defeat of the NDC to me alone, I think it is quite unfortunate. Maybe I will say that they don’t know how the party structures work,” Mr Abubakar said.

Going into the 2016 elections, Sidi Abubakar was singled out as one of the weakest among the leadership of the NDC, comparing his visibility to that of his colleague National Youth Organiser of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sammi Awuku.

This resulted in a lot of blames being cast on him after the defeat of the NDC in the 2016 general election.

Mr Abubakar who was very optimistic of a win the parliamentary candidature of the NDC for the Madina constituency pulled 480 votes behind lawyer Francis Xavier Sosu who pulled 661 votes to win the race.