The flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress John Mahama has stated emphatically that the opposition party has no problems with the National Peace Council regardless of the leaked tape.
The secret recording which called for verbal abuse on the peace council chairman Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante was allegedly made by the national chairman of the NDC Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo.
“For the first time, I will endorse insulting the peace council chair,” he said on the tape.
These and other comments revealing plans to create insecurity in the 2020 elections was met with public backlash.
Speaking at a thanksgiving service held at Perez chapel Dzorwulu in appreciation to God for successful presidential primaries, Mahama said the tape “should be dismissed with the contempt that it deserves” and explained the circumstances leading to the comment.
After calling the tape “a distraction” last Saturday after a unity walk, Mahama told the church that his chairman did not mean his words.
Mahama said that party “meant that we should criticize peace council chair verbally.” He continued that the peace council chair was singled out because he engaged in selective condemnation.
The reverend minister failed to condemn assault meted out by the national security operatives during the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-elections in Accra last month.
“On our side we said as chairman of the peace council, the first thing you must do is to condemn the violence first then after that now you look at what who said or what who didn’t say,” Mahama explained to the worshippers at Perez Chapel.
“That was our problem,” he said and noted the posture of the peace council chairman hurts the party’s leaders and pushed the national chairman to make a comment deemed negative.
“I mean for our chairman who had witnessed the violence, the guy whose leg was shot, the bone had shattered and the bone fragments were lying on the ground. Anybody who was there will be traumatized.
“If a few days after he was talking and saying we should attack the peace council chairman, it didn’t mean we should go and beat the peace council chairman. It means that we should criticize him verbally,” he noted.
Mahama said the NDC as a party is ready to work with the Peace Council to address the menace of party militias come 2020.
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