'Nothing wrong' with 94 NDC MPs' endorsement of Mahama – Nketia

General Secretary of the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has said he finds nothing wrong with the endorsement of former President John Mahama by 94 Minority MPs vis-à-vis the party’s race to elect a flag bearer for the 2020 polls.

“I heard about a group of MPs declaring their support for President Mahama.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, according to the advice we have issued.

“What will be offensive to us will be for somebody, maybe the leadership of the caucus, to come out to say that: ‘The NDC caucus in parliament supports Joshua Alabi or Sylvester Mensah or John Mahama’”, Mr Nketia told Accra-based GHOne in an interview.

The party recently set 7 December 2018 for its presidential primaries.

Mr Nketia announced at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, 2 August 2018 that the date is in line with the party’s constitutions, explaining that: “We have taken note of our constitutional requirement to choose our flag bearer 24 months before the next elections and the constitution, not having been amended yet, we can safely calculate our timelines from 7th December 2020, so that will bring us back to 7th of December 2018 for a choice to be made on who leads our party into the next general elections.

“Ordinarily, we would have concluded all the internal elections before opening the space for campaigning and declaration of intentions, but we realise that if we are to wait till we finish our elections by September, the time will be short for some aspirants, so on behalf of the national executive committee and on my own behalf as the Chief Executive of NDC, I wish to declare the campaign period for our presidential primaries officially opened with immediate effect.”

Apart from Mr Mahama, the other aspirants include Prof Joshua Alabi, Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, Mr Sylvester Mensah, Mr Alban Bagbin and Mr Eliplim Agbemava.