155 NDC Members Defect To NPP

By Newman Dotse

155 members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Wa, in the Upper West Region, defected to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) when the flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Akuffo Addo stormed the region on his house to house campaign trail.

The defectors claimed that since their party, the NDC was voted into power for close to the four-year mandate given to it to govern the nation; they have not seen any tangible development.

According to them, instead of the government focusing on job creation for the youth, government officials who are supposed to map up strategies as to how to develop areas that were underdeveloped, busied themselves mapping up strategies to marginalize the founder of the party who inspires them to continue to sacrifice for the party even though they were not seeing much in terms of development. The leader of the group, Mr. Sumaila Ibrahim, speaking to The Citizen Newspaper on behalf of his colleagues right after a mini rally organized for the NPP flagbearer in Wa three weeks ago, said the constituency executives and the Regional Executives of the party in the region do not listen to their views, adding that the only promise the NDC party gave them, which has to do with the construction of a befitting regional hospital has also eluded them because the Vice President had allegedly decided to move the project to the Central Region, even though he was the very person who cut sod for the commencement of the construction of the said hospital when they were canvassing for support for the President Mills’ second term bid, prior to the Sunyani congress. He said the sod cutting and undue delay for the construction of the Upper West regional hospital, which is crucial to the region, would certainly cause the President Mills led NDC government massive loss of votes in the coming elections. The experience on the ground, as held by many vigilant people in the region, according to him, is that, the sod cutting ceremony for the construction of the hospital by Vice President, John Mahama, was a mischievous political rhetoric. The people now feel it was essentially meant to throw dust into the eyes of the discerning people of the region by the NDC and make them remain as victims and not supporters of the NDC Party. “The ruling NDC Party ought to know that in modern global politics, politicians are merely seen and regarded as ordinary men and women who are liable and accountable to ordinary constituents who wield the power to empower or dislodge a government,” he explained. According to him, the undue delay in the construction of the hospital convincingly demonstrates that the NDC government is making political publicity stunt out of the whole hospital affair. Lack of development, lack of public place of convenience, lack of teachers' quarters and lack of respect for the founder of the party, former President Jerry John Rawlings, were all mentioned as some of the causes that compelled them to defect. When asked why they were defecting to the NPP and not to any other party, they said they were happy with the free, fair and peaceful constituency elections and the NPP national primaries that selected Nana Addo as the NPP flag bearer, unlike the intimidation tactics employed to bulldoze President Mills through during the Sunyani Congress.

“We know that this decision will not go down well with some of the hardworking members of the party, especially some of the MPs that we admire, but we think that it is time to call a spade a spade. Things are not being managed well in the party and we cannot be part of a party that is prepared to collapse just because of the selfish interest of some greedy bastards as the founder of the party puts it,” he disclosed.

Welcoming the new converts into the fold of NPP, the flagbearer of the NPP, Nana Akuffo Addo, thanked them for their bold decision to join the elephant family, even at a time that their own party was in power.

The new converts promised to join forces with the NPP to win more members and supporters from the NDC to enable Nana Addo win the forthcoming election.

Source: The Citizen Newspaper (thecitizen.news@yahoo.com) +233 27 731 4655