John Mahama's 2nd Term In Danger

While hard working President John Mahama and his government are working to resolve the myriad of challenges confronting the nation, particularly the energy crisis, ongoing actions and or inactions by the National Executives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) suggest they may be indifferent to the survival of the government and party after 2016 general elections.

High expectations among sections of Ghanaians, especially supporters of the ruling party, that the 2016 elections is a done deal following the successful and peaceful Kumasi Congress coupled with the good performance of the Mahama administration so far, could come to naught.

The aL-hAJJ can confirm that all is not well and the party may be in for a shock of its life if remedial measures are not sought to close the widening and dangerous chasm emerging in the party.
Worrying reports uncovered by this paper indicate that unless the President, John Dramani Mahama and elders of the party move quickly to nip emerging negative trend within the national executives of the party in the bud, the party would comfortably head into opposition come 7th December, 2016.

Over the past few weeks, happenings at the party’s newly acquired plush headquarters has been very disturbing as elected officers are said to be holding entrench and counter views on the way forward for the ruling party, unmindful of the consequences of their actions.
While some NDC bigwigs are quick to rubbish any strife within the party leadership, The aL-hAJJ can confirm that the outcome of the December 20 congress has brought to the fore widening divisions in the party.

According to some party insiders, most meetings of the national executives invariably end abruptly without any consensus. This, sources say, is as a result of entrenched positions taken by some members of the leadership of the party to protect whatever interest they belong to.

As a result of the cold-war among the party’s leadership, a cross section of party supporters across the country are threatening to storm and burn down the newly acquired headquarters of the party if the National Executives do not bury their individual differences and work together for the benefit of the party.

According to them, the only way to get the leadership of the party to unite and assist President John Mahama in transforming the country as he promised is to adopt “radical and unconventional approach in forcing them to work together.”

Some of them, who phoned into The aL-hAJJ’s office could not hide their frustration when they said the behavior of their leaders is threatening the survival of the party and President Mahama’s second term bid.

“We are not going to sit down and allow them to destroy the party because of their egoistic interest…the party is bigger than any of them, we voted for them to help us win power not to protect their individual interest. We expect them to unite and work together …this is non-negotiable,” one of them stated.

Leading this crusade is leading member of the party and one time NDC parliamentary aspirant in the Binduri constituency of the Upper East region, Stephen Atubiga.

In what could be described as a warning note to the Kofi Portuphy-led executives, Stephen Atubiga over the weekend wrote on his facebook wall “The national executives at the headquarters will have to be very careful. They will have to put the interest of the party first to unite and enable us win 2016. If this division continues, very soon we will storm the headquarters and believe it going to be very nasty. What is wrong with them over there?”

Narrating his ordeal when he visited the NDC’s headquarters, the overly upset NDC activist stated “can you imagine I was at the headquarters to talk to the national chairman about issues pertaining to the party and issues in Binduri NDC few days ago.

National chairman was out of his office, so I decided to say hi to some of the national executives available, to my surprise any one of them I tried seeing, I was told Hon, don't go to him or her because they will say you belong to this group or that group. You kidding me? I was very ashamed and very upset. They should learn to have forgiven spirit. Time will tell.”

In a follow up interview with The aL-hAJJ, the former government communications team member explained that the present NDC leadership is divided along Rawlings and Mills factions with each of the factions fighting to protect their interest.

This he said is affecting the party at the grassroots, “this Rawlings/Mills faction thing has trickled down to the regional, constituency and even the branches. It is affecting the party and some of us will not allow it to cause us the election.”

As part of plans to prevent it, Atubiga revealed he has mobilized NDC supporters across the country and beginning next week “our presence will be felt. We will first move to Accra to petition the national chairman and the President Mahama to unite the party. We will give them some few days to unite failure of which we will storm the place and burn it down. If we burn down the place, we will see where they will sit to do the kind of things they are doing.”

According to him but for his intervention, some supporters of the party would have locked up the headquarters last month, but “now I am fed with what the executives are doing…I am no longer going to calm down anybody, I will mobilize for us to burn down the headquarters if they fail to unite.”

He said President Mahama is in a position to win the 2016 elections, therefore he and his group will not countenance any attempts by the leadership of the party to thwart that effort.

“The 2016 elections mean a lot for the three Northern regions…we have our destiny in the hands of President Mahama, our survival in politics in Ghana depends on his performance. If he fails then we Northerners are doomed…and some of us are not going to allow that to happen,” he stated.

He however added that if President Mahama is really interested in winning the 2016 election and making history as the first Northerner to win a second term in office, he must assert his authority as leader of the party and call the executives to order.

He also called on the National Chairman, Kofi Portuphy, to bring the feuding factions together, saying “I know Portuphy is a strong man and he is capable of doing it…we voted out Kwabena Adjei because he couldn’t do some of these things; I don’t want Portuphy to disappoint some of us.”