The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mr. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has come under intense criticisms from some within the party who claim he had in a recent public speech alluded to the Founder of the NDC and former President Jerry John Rawlings as a dog, which he vehemently denied.
He was speaking at the ceremony to officially welcome back Dr Yao Obed Asamoah and his returnee followers from the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) to the NDC.
In the midst of the confusion, The Catalyst has decided to probe the issue in order to ascertain the veracity or otherwise of the claim by the NDC Scribe’s accusers.
The paper managed to secure a copy of both video and audio recordings of the speech, which we have transcribed fully, and can attest to the fact that the General Secretary did not say what his accusers are claiming.
This was the only occasion when Mr Asiedu Nketia mentioned a dog in an analogy. Hear him: “...Now you are the best judges and you have testified that the reasons that led you away from NDC no longer exist so I would have seen you as highly unprincipled if you had not taken the decision you have taken today. But thank God I did not have the opportunity to say so. Because I believe that if I’m saying I’m not coming to your house because there is a dog and because you want my friendship and you remove that dog and I continue saying that I still will not come to that house then my initial decision of not coming to your house was not because of the presence of the dog. So I thank you all for doing what you are doing today, it is a very important homecoming.”
Please read the full text of the speech below:
Mr. Chairman, Comrades, I stand before you this afternoon filled with great emotions because today reminds me a lot of things that we’ve gone through not the least of which was unpleasant occurrences in Koforidua in 2005. But before I proceed to talk about Koforidua, I will like to confirm that the submissions made by my colleague Comrade Zedeng are indeed true, he has taken you through the processes that have led to today.
Today is the penultimate or in other words, the last but one of the milestones that will seal the project. I’m happy that we’ve gotten approval at the highest level of the DFP. I’m happy that we’ve got approval from the Presidency.
What we are left with will be another process that NDC would have to go through. But judging from the smooth nature of this transition, I don’t anticipate any difficulties at all towards achieving the full measure. Having said that let me proceed to say why I think I’m filled with emotions.
I have always believed that change is a must because I know that in the history of evolutions, it is not the most intelligent species that survive, it is not the strongest species that survive, it is rather the species that is adaptable to change that survives. And so any organism, whether a legal organism, living thing, political party or anything or a country that remains static, is committed to doom. And so therefore once upon a time, the NDC party came to be formed with a very heavy input of the personality of Dr. Obed Yao Asamoah.
As the party proceeded, we felt that this party was a young organization. So we needed to hold the party together as much as possible and so it was felt at that time that decision making that would suit the circumstances of the time would have to done as much as possible through consensus building so when you took the NDC, the very first NDC constitution, and the standing orders that governed our congresses you realize that there are pulses that talks about endorsement of our leadership. The practice was that senior members would brainstorm, generate the list for approval of congress.
From the very beginning, there was no talk about direct elections to choose our leadership either at the presidential level or at the party leadership level. And indeed even our very first parliamentary candidates were approved at a congress instead of constituency processes that generated those candidates. Whiles these arrangements were best at that time, the party did not remain static.
The democracy in this country continued to grow. There was more awareness on the party of citizens of their right to choose their own leaders and there was more demand for accountability from leadership by way of decision making.
NDC I’m sure did not rise to the realization early enough and it caused us painfully in the 2000 elections. Immediately after 2000 elections, again, leaders in the light of Dr. Obed Asamoah met and decided that we must learn from our mistakes and effect changes within the party and so we fielded a team to go and do reorganization of the party’s structures. After a very successful reorganization, we took the views of our membership across the country about how, where we went wrong and then how we could organize the party better.
And the overwhelming consensus was that, one of the single most important causes of our defeat at that time was that we imposed candidates on the electorate and again that, we were not electing our leaders in as a transparent fashion as the requirements of the democracy at that time were. And so we began a painful process of internally democratizing the party. So you realize that from our congress at Trade Fair site where the chairmanship of NDC was contested properly, Dr Obed Asamoah emerged as the chairman of National Democratic Congress.
And even before that election, there was this issue of co-chairmanship and that was also identified by the rank and file of the party as one of the areas, sources of confusion in running a party. Every party or army should have a single chain of command and so many of the delegates then saw the mechanism of co-chairmanship as the means of a recipe for disaster. So we voted overwhelmingly to drop the idea of co-chairmanship and then we conducted the second vote and Dr Obed Asamoah emerged the chairman.
Comrades, from there, even before we came to this first real democratic congress of the NDC, where elections were conducted, some people had already suffered martyrdom, and we don’t need to remind ourselves that any process of change begins with some people talking about an idea.
Those who discard the idea are in most cases not the ones’ who have the chance of even trying to implement it at all. Some musicians will sing about the idea, some poets will write about the idea, but will really never get the chance into putting the idea into practice.
Then will follow a group of people who would try to put that idea into practice. And in most cases, they die as martyrs. So the first people to begin talking about internal democracy in NDC never got the chance of implementing it at all. The very first group that tried to push something was the group who started a movement called Reform.
They also suffered martyrdom. And then the lot fell on the likes of Obed Asamoah to continue from where Reform left off. So when Dr Obed Asamoah was going to Koforidua, those of us who appreciate history of change realize that the walls were heavily against him and that he may end up being the second martyr. He went courageously and what happened, happened. The congress was not the most peaceful congress anybody could be proud of. Where some of us had our differences with Obed was that we believe he is strong personality, we believe he is a principled and courageous person, but we thought that whoever fights and run away would certainly live to fight some other day. I am not surprise at all that Dr Asamoah is coming to fight today and so we were encouraging him. There is some secret, one of the very best kept secret between me and Dr Obed Asamoah. But thanks to Wikileaks, I have heard him comment about it once on the radio otherwise I would not talk about it. But since he has already ‘wikileaked’ the thing, then I think that I can also repeat it without any fear at all.
Did you know that I was the orchestration to evacuate Dr Asamoah from the congress ground to safety? I did it not because of any special love for Dr Asamoah. But I did it because of my abhorrence of violence in our politics and so I did not think that it was proper for me to take over a party which had lynched a national chairman or general secretary at congress and so if I was going to take any such party into government then all the odds would be heavily weighed against the new leadership so I felt that to save the face of the party and to make the work of the new leadership lighter, I was convinced that the best thing to do was to help Dr Asamoah to move to safety and I did that. And I have no apologies for anybody at all for having done that. If I have another chance, I will do it again.
Today also, we must pay tribute to Dr Kwesi Botchway because when NDC started, there was no talk about election of a presidential candidate at all. Perhaps we felt that we could decide everything for the Ghanaian electorates. Happily we have learnt our lessons from the 2000 elections and from the 2004 elections. So this party NDC can never go back to a situation where leadership will be appointed. It is not whether Asiedu Nketia is the General Secretary or Dr Kwabena Adjei is the General Secretary. Any other general secretary who will take over from me or any other national chairman who will take over from Dr Kwabena Adjei will find this impossible to return the party to a situation where its leadership will be appointed.
The internal democracy of NDC has come to stay. And so what we are doing today, I have heard many people talk about DFP, some said you are stomach politicians, you are going to where power is and so on. I hold a completely different view and my view is that, we are principled people. You left this party because of your abhorrence for lack of internal democracy in the party. You left the party because of your abhorrence of violence in the conduct of affairs in the NDC.
Now you are the best judges and you have testified that the reasons that led you away from NDC no longer exist so I would have seen you as highly unprincipled if you had not taken the decision you have taken today. But thank God I did not have the opportunity to say so. Because I believe that if I’m saying I’m not coming to your house because there is a dog and because you want my friendship and you remove that dog and I continue saying that I still will not come to that house then my initial decision of not coming to your house was not because of the presence of the dog. So I thank you all for doing what you are doing today, it is a very important homecoming.
My advice however is that human beings as we are, we never accept change willingly and so therefore, there will be some hangover effects but we will all need to prove ourselves that we are really committed to the step we are taking today. It may turn up that in the various branches NDC people and your people will continue seeing each other with some sense of suspicion.
It will be incumbent on both sides to identify these areas of problem, target it and remove it so that we can all open up to each other and accept each other.
Don’t be doubted where you fix your first shop in your constituency or in your branch that oh, we are now coming, don’t worry at all, just justify your inclusion, come to help with the energising process within NDC. Play a very outstanding and significant role in the upcoming elections and let observers say that our fears have not materialized and that NDC actually reunited with the DFP.
On behalf of the leader of the party, I wish to welcome all of you and assure you that I will trigger the necessary processes that will lead to the conclusion of the arrangement that we have put in place to seal the membership.
Thank you very much.
Copyright © 1994 - 2024 GhanaWeb. All rights reserved.
