Don’t sanction internal critics – lecturer urges NDC

It will be risky for leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to punish members of the party who have publicly shared their sentiments over the causes of the party’s defeat in 2016, lawyer Osei Kadwo, a political science lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, has said.

According to him, people cannot be gagged from expressing their views on matters relating to their party and so any attempt to prevent them from talking will plunge that party into the abyss.

His comments follow indications by the National Organiser of the NDC, Kofi Adams, that the main opposition party will begin to crack the whip on members who have resorted to the media to express their views on why the party lost last year’s elections.

Speaking on Abusua FM, Mr Adams had said: “The talking is becoming too much and it’s not helping the party at all…in fact it is rather hurting and dividing our front.

“If the blame game continues as it is going now, we may have to invoke some disciplinary measures to deal with such loose talkers who have made it their business to wash the party’s linen in public and causing us so much disaffection.”

But speaking in an interview with Accra News’ Nana Ama Agyarko on Friday March 24, Mr Osei Kwadwo said: “What is happening in the NDC at the moment is normal, it happens in every political party. You cannot prevent people or members of a political from expressing their views and opinions on matters relating to the party. These people have invested their hearts, minds, resources, time and energies in the party and so they have every right to talk when they feel things are not moving in the direction they want.

“I think, although there are rules and regulations in the party, the NDC will need to be shrewd in the decision to crack the whip on members who have expressed their views in public on why the party lost the elections last year.

“Punishing them will not be the best, it may lead to something else and so they will need to find ways of handling this situation so that it will not degenerate into a situation they may not be able to handle.”