'It’s my time to lead NDC' - Spio-Garbrah

Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, a Presidential Aspirant of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), has appealed to party’s delegates to vote for him to lead the party because “it is his time”.

He explained that when he contested with the late Professor Evan Attah Mills and others he placed second and ought to have been given the mantle after his death but due to the nation’s rules his vice automatically ascended the throne.

“After that term expired everyone in the party agreed that for the sake of the party; no aspirants would contest the sitting President within the party… if the sitting President has been shown the exit by the majority of Ghanaians then I deserve to be given the opportunity to lead,” he added.

Speaking to NDC delegates at Mallam-Gbawe on Sunday, he stated that he is the next rightful leader.

“Why would the party marshal its whole resources to elect a leader who can only serve for a term…is this correct and is this a good business investment choice,” he asked the delegates.

Although the whole NDC government was accused of being corrupt, he challenged the delegates to give one instance where he was fingered in a scandalous or corrupt deal.

“I accept that I was part of the government at the 79th minutes as a Minister of Trade but I will like to draw the attention to the fact that everyone had his or her role assigned so I was not part of the corruption tag,” he noted.

Mr Spio-Gabrah urged the delegates to elect a winnable and incorruptible Presidential Candidate who would appeal and be accepted by Ghanaians not only the NDC for elections 2020.

In response to questions of which the most frequent was his agenda for the party, he said having served the party even at the grassroots level he had developed a seven-point agenda to address the various challenges in the Party.

“Of all the Presidential Candidates I am the only one to put up seven point agenda to strengthen the Party structures, creating of welfare committees and spending most time at NDC headquarters, human capacity building programme, strengthening of the women's wing, the creation of a credit union for members and establishment of a Nkrumah/Rawlings ideology for the NDC,” he outlined.

Mr Spio-Gabrah said it was sad that after the party had been in power for over 15 years it did not have offices and held meetings in the open, containers and kiosks.

Most people who had served the Party in various capacities in the past, he noted had been relegated and forgotten adding that the seven points agenda had factored all these issues to build a formidable and strong Party devoid of corruption tags by its opponents.