NDC Patches Up To Face 2024
The opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC, has released a monumental and landmark photograph that suggests a drive towards total unity in the party.
In the picture are the Flagbearer, former President John Dramani Mahama, and the man who contested him for the slot in their internal primaries, Dr Kwabena Duffuor. The latter was a Deputy Governor, and later the substantive Governor of the Bank of Ghana as well as Finance minister in the Rawlings and the Atta Mills regimes.
When Mahama took over the mantle and became the President, a deafening silence fell on Dr Duffour whose deputy, Seth Terkper was raised to a full minister of finance.
When the NDC lost the 2016 elections, Dr Duffour fell on the dagger of the succeeding regime led by the incumbent President Nana Akufo Addo in the wave of bank closures. It followed a clean-up of the financial sector. The Unibank liquidated, and the bloodshot-eyed Duffuor threw his hat in the ring.
He mounted a challenge to John Mahama in a bid to grab the mantle of party leadership to fight out the status quo and reset the buttons. The campaigns were heated with the uncompromising Duffuor team breaking traditions in the party by speaking up to contentious issues. Days before the election and several polls giving Mahama a strong lead, Duffuor threw in the towel and allowed Mahama to go unopposed, citing anomalies in the party’s voter register.
The symbolic photograph therefore erodes any seemingly bad blood between the two camps.
The former Majority Leader, Haruna Iddrissu whom many thought his replacement with Dr Cassiel Ato Forson was Rambo-styled, and might have fallen out of love, is in the group picture.
There are also Fritz Baffuor and Humphrey Quaye, both from the supposed Rawlings camp and affiliated with Dr. Duffuor in the “unexpected” photograph. Humphrey was the media liaison officer to President Rawlings up to the end of his tenure. Fritz was a close friend of Rawlings, preceding his appointment as Information minister by President Atta Mills.
Another hair-raiser in the group is Yaw Boateng Gyan, a former national organizer of the NDC, who demanded a change in leadership in favor of Duffuor.
Other key members in this epic image are Alhaji Huudu Yahaya and Prof. Joshua Alabi. Huudu Yahaya was a long-time ally of Rawlings as a PNDC Secretary for Mobilisation and Productivity, CDRs, and the Northern region. Alabi was Northern and Greater Accra regional minister when Rawlings transited from the PNDC military regime to democratic rule in 1993.
Conspicuously missing in this art of togetherness are Koku Anyidoho, who was the Director of Communications to President Atta Mills, and Allotey Jacobs, a former Central regional chairman of the NDC both of whom are at odds. Recently, the firebrand radio junkie, Blakk Rasta called on the party to turn attention to Koku Anyidoho who he said could be an important asset for the party if appeased and given his pride of place.
Also outstanding is Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, the wife of the late President Rawlings.