General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketiah has laid bare the dirty linen of the party for public view in a secret tape making rounds on social media.
He disclosed how Chairman Ofoso Ampofo held the party to ransom and threatened to resign if he was not given a free hand to personally appoint officers to be responsible for the 2020 elections.
According to Aseidu Nketiah, Chairman Ampofo had submitted a list of persons he wanted appointed to various positions at a national executive meeting in anticipation of the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.
He indicated that former President John Dramani Mahama who was unable to attend the meeting sent Julius Debrah in his stead and pleaded for the positions of Director of Election and IT to be delayed until a flagberear was duly elected to enable the person make an input into those to be appointed.
“It was a very simple matter for understanding but surprisingly Chairman Ampofo got infuriated and questioned if the former President was suggesting the party had no leader and had to wait for him (Mahama) to become leader before the appointments could be made)”
“Everybody was shocked because we did not know whether he had a problem with Mahama or with Julius Debrah who was sent to relay the request of the former President.”
“We did all we could to convince him to see reason in the request but he disagreed, which caused the meeting to split into an Ampofo faction and Mahama faction.
According to Mr. Asiedu Nketiah, Chairman Ampofo threatened to resign if he was not allowed to fill all these positions because he was leader at the time since the party had not yet elected a flagbearer.
The NDC, he said, was caught between the rock and the hard place because allowing the Chairman to resign had its own ramification.
“So, he was allowed to make the appointments,” he said.
He disclosed that National Organizer Joshua Akamba even expressed serious misgivings about Chairman Ampofo’s choice for Director of IT; Osei Kwame Griffith who he said was a close confidante to Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia and warned against his appointment.
Mr. Asiedu Nketiah disclosed that during the election, Mr. Griffith’s acclaimed robust system for the collation of election results crashed and party was unable to collate the results in the time to even challenge the Electoral Commission at the Supreme Court.
