The Ashanti Region branch of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) is on fire, following threats by five dismissed Constituency Executives for Kwabre East to go public with secret information concerning the regional hierarchy of the party, if their suspension and dismissals are not immediately reversed.
The aggrieved constituency executives are threatening to spill the beans and bring to fore, all the internal machinations engineered by the party in the region, if the authorities do not address their grievances before next week.
Besides revealing what they term as damming revelations about the party, the aggrieved executives have also declared their readiness to rally branch and polling station coordinators in the Kwabre East constituency to embark on active campaign against the party in the 2016 elections.
The Kwabre East Constituency first vice chairman, Mr. Paul Okyere, together with four others, namely Hon. Fatau Illiasu, the 2012 Parliamentary Candidate, Constituency Organizer, Nana Kwame Agyemang, Deputy Youth Organizer, Atta Kwakye, and another executive member named Nana Frimpong Manso, have since November last year, been suspended unilaterally by Mohammed Awal Aziz, the Constituency chairman for the area on grounds which they argue, were unconstitutional.
The aggrieved executives came to the Regional Office of The Chronicle on Tuesday to state their displeasure, after claiming several efforts to get structures of the party to address the grievances had proved futile.
They pointed accusing fingers at the current regional executives of the party for turning blind eye to the excesses of the Constituency Chairman and his cohorts, because of their ambition to maintain their various posts when the party goes to congress.
According to the dismissed executives, they are completely appalled at the lukewarm attitude of the regional executives, led by its chairman Yaw Obimpeh, to bring the constituency chairman to order in the face of overgrowing evidence of constitutional breach.
They contend that the Constituency Chairman took a unilateral decision to dismiss them for unjustifiable reason and instead of calling him to order, the regional executives are condoning the act and have refused to address the issues, despite several petitions.
According to them, the reasons for suspending them were so trivial and are not stipulated in the party’s constitution, stressing that the chairman also applied all the three punitive measures including suspension, dismissal and ban from party activities.
The dismissed executives noted that the constituency chairman caused their dismissals on the grounds that they refused to support the current DCE, Hon. Adams Iddissah, when the President nominated him for the second time and rather chose to launch individual bids or support other candidates for the position.
In the case of the former Parliamentary Candidate, Fatau Iliasuh, the Constituency Chairman reportedly accused him of clandestinely masterminding a demonstration against the DCE, whilst in the case of the Deputy Youth Organizer, Atta Kwakye, his crime is that he refused to rally support for the chairman during his incarceration a few years ago.
Meanwhile, the acting Regional Secretary of the party, Mr. Raymond Tandoh, has debunked the assertion by the dismissed executives that the regional hierarchy was in bed with the constituency chairman and has, therefore, refused to resolve the matter.
According to him, the constitution of the party grants the chairman the power to take disciplinary action against any member within the constituency, including elected executives. Mr. Tandoh said the dismissed executives petitioned the regional hierarchy for the revocation and amicable settlement of the matter, in order for them to participate in the ongoing biometric registration.
The acting Secretary said when the region subsequently intervened and requested that the dismissed executives write an apology letter to the Constituency Chairman, they refused and insisted that they did nothing wrong to warrant such action.
“Under the circumstance, there is nothing we could do about it, our hands are tight,” he noted. However, the former Parliamentary Candidate, Hon. Fatau Illiasuh, insists the regional executives had not been fair to them for failing to consider the merit of the case and acting accordingly.
“They have not been fair to us at all; we have served this suspension for close to one year now and you come and tell us to apologise again, we will not, we shall advice ourselves and the consequences will be suicidal to the party, we can promise that,” he threatened.
