Festival of Attacks in NDC, Faces Imminent Implosion -Over Betrayal in Parliament and Dismissed Petition

In less than 24 hours, the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has been gripped by the double jeopardy of having its presidential election petition dismissed by the Supreme Court for lacking merit and having to contend with it Members of Parliament (MPs) and executives allegedly caught in bed with the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

First of all, some Members of Parliament of the NDC had reportedly compromised themselves with possible secret offers handed them by the NPP and had allowed some problematic appointees of President Akufo Addo to scale through their vetting unscathed.

Initially, the vetting of Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, minister-designate for Information; Hawa Koomson, minister-designate for Fisheries and Aquaculture and Owusu Afriyie Akoto, minister-designate for Food and Agriculture were rejected by the NDC minority on the parliamentary appointment committee.

However, when the matter was put to vote on the floor of Parliament, the problematic ministers received resounding approval by both the NDC and the NPP Parliamentarians. 

In a hanging parliament of 137 seats for both the NDC and the NPP, some 12 MPs of the NDC chose not to be present during the voting for the nominees, while the NPP packed the chamber with their full 137 MPs.

Whatsup News has gathered from angry members of the NDC that some 12 MPs of the NDC absented themselves on some frivolous excuses, in what is increasingly turning out to be a deliberate ploy influenced by direct inducement from the governing party.

According to Mugabe Salifu Maase, a pro-NDC radio presenter at Power FM, some Gh¢5Million Ghana Cedis exchanged hands between the henchmen of the Akufo Addo administration and some NDC MPs.

Even though, he did not specifically refer to any monetary inducement, the National Communications Officer of the party, Sammy Gyamfi describes the situation as a betrayal by the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Bagbin, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka Mohammed and several other parliamentarians and executives of the embattled opposition party.

“They brazenly defied the leadership of the party and betrayed the collective good for their selfish interest. And we, must not let them succeed in their parochial quest to destroy the NDC, the party that has done so much for them and all of us. The shame they have brought on the party will forever hang like an albatross around their necks.

The NDC had hoped to use its majority influence in the appointment committee of Parliament as a bargaining chip that could have influenced the dynamics of the presidential election petition sent to the Supreme Court by the NDC flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama. But the Supreme Court threw out the petition despite the clear exhibition of suspicious actions bordering on election rigging by Electoral Commissioner, Jean Adukwei Mensa.

Whatsup News has gathered that the strategies that the NDC planned to use as its trump card in the petition were leaked to the legal team of the two respondents in the petition by suspected moles in the NDC legal team.

The respondents, namely the Electoral Commission and President Akufo Addo, the beneficiary of the suspected election rigging had used the curious posture of the seven-member panel of the Supreme Court sitting on the petition to counter every move of the petition of John Dramani Mahama, even when most of the court’s decisions appeared to seriously defy basic logic.

Angry members of the NDC have vowed to root out all the betrayers in their party, come 2024 when the country goes back to the polls.

There is a school of thought within the NDC that the party’s MPs may have set a long-term trap for the NPP by allowing the problematic minister nominees of Akufo Addo to sail through, given the fact that these scandal-ridden ministers may repeat their shambolic behaviour in what will further dent the image of the governing party enough to cost it the 2024 general elections.

However, others thing the allegation of betrayal was more plausible than the explanation that the decision of the NDC MPs to pander to the wishes of the governing party was some calculated covert booby trap.

Sammy Gyamfi insists the NDC MPs were compromised and worked in their selfish interest. 

“The hypocrites can choose to remain quiet or even condemn us for speaking up, so they can remain in the good books of the renegades. But I and all who are pained by this act of betrayal will not keep quiet, because we don’t fear anyone and don’t wish to be in their good books. If they can defy the party leadership and interest openly and subject all of us to public ridicule, then they can and must also be called out openly. The NDC party is supreme and it must be cleansed,” wrote Sammy Gyamfi in a scathing statement he issued today.