The much-awaited National Democratic Congress (NDC), 10th Congress last Saturday came and went, with Johnson Asiedu Nketia, Fifi Fiavi Kwetey and Joseph Yammin, becoming the victors of the day, but with a huge responsibility on their shoulders to deliver victory for their party in the 2024 Presidential and Parliamentary election.
Of the three, Joseph Yammin, who displaced the incumbent National Organiser, Joshua Akamba and five others to win the slot with 3,730 votes, is expected to deplore every strategy that wins souls for the party to increase its numbers.
Asiedu Nketia and Fifi Kwetey, National Chairman and General Secretary respectively, are expected to rebuild the party’s structures , revitalize existing pillars, employment of serious-minded individuals as administrators, training of the party’s polling station agents among others in time and in readiness for the 2024 general elections.
Of all the things expected of the National Chairman and General Secretary, who becomes, the NDC’s Director of Elections, as well as the IT Director, will determine the seriousness of the two elected executives who had used the failures of these non-elective positions against their key contenders; Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo and Elvis Afriyie Ankrah, respectively.
Mr Asiedu Nketia, a general secretary for 17 years, had accused Mr Ofosu-Ampofo of going against the advice of ex-President John Dramani Mahama to appoint Elvis Afriyie Ankrah and a former Head of ICT at National Identification Authority (NIA), Osei Kwame Griffiths as Directors Elections and IT, respectively.
While, Mr Asiedu Nketia, had accused Osei Kwame Griffiths of incompetence, saying he deployed an inferior collation system to get the presidential results which collapsed just with five regions out of the 16 regions, hence couldn’t get the results obtained by the NDC’s Presidential candidate and compare it to that of Nana Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
Then General Secretary of the NDC, also revealed that Mr Akamba, the immediate past National Organizer suggested that the NDC’s Director of IT, was working for Vice-President, Mahamudu Bawumia of the NPP therefore, cannot be trusted with properly collating the presidential results for the NDC.
Fifi Kwetey, the new NDC General Secretary, on his part had specifically accused Elvis Afriyie Ankrah. of failing to collate results and promised not repeat this since he had done a similar job before and had recorded success.
Mr Asiedu Nketia, while condemning Ofosu Ampofo, promised to deplore a superior technology for the collation of results at the 2024 election if made National Chairman adding, he was in touch with Socialist International (SI), a worldwide political organisation of social democratic and labour-oriented political parties, to help the NDC with best technology to collate presidential results.
With the victory in his bag, Mr Asiedu Nketia, in his inaugural address after the NDC’s national delegates’ congress at the Accra Sports Stadium, said: “We are prepared to sacrifice everything; and I mean everything, including our lives, to achieve victory.”
“Wherever impunity becomes law, resistance becomes a duty”, he noted.
“Looking at the array of executives elected today, I have no doubt the party wants us to carry the battle to the elephant. We cannot let the country, and we cannot let the party down.”
“We are not taking the confidence for granted. Ghana is in a crisis and the NDC is also at a crossroads”.
“What we need is unity. We pledge on behalf of myself and the new executives that in the coming days, our first assignment is to work to unite the party and bring everybody on board, even as we march forward to defeat the elephant and set the nation on the path of progress.”
Mr Asiedu Nketia, has said he cherishes the longstanding friendship he has had with his predecessor Mr. Ofosu-Ampofo, saying the name he defeated had been his friend for 25 years.
Speaking at the end of the process, the former president, John Dramani Mahama said: “Two years ago, we started this re-organization exercise and it has been a slow but thorough exercise. There were many times in this journey when many people asked me why it is taking so long, and I said better for us to do this exercise thoroughly than to rush it and repeat the mistakes of the past”.
“So, it has been two long years but, in the end, we have come to the climax of the exercise.”
“The delegates have spoken and we have heard. Many people say fear delegates but I believe the delegates have the best wisdom and they have spoken and told us what they want and it is our duty to work with the blueprint that they have given us”, he added.
“For those who have lost, let us understand that there is a lot of room under the umbrella for everyone.”
Mr Mahama, tasked the newly-elected national executives of the NDC to already hit the ground running to secure victory for the party in 2024.
“The first thing I will say is that this celebration must be very short,” Mahama said after the elections. “We must cut the celebration short and set to work immediately.”
He said the stakes are high in the 2024 elections.
“Some people say ‘fear delegates’ but I believe that the delegates have the best wisdom and they have spoken and told us what they want and it is our duty to work with the blueprint that they have given us.
“These gentlemen and women here have been elected by the delegates to serve a mandate till 2026,” Mahama added.
Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, until this latest election as national chairman, had served as the general secretary of the party for the past 17 years. He received 5,569 votes (65.17% of the vote), as against his main contender, the immediate past chairman of the party, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, who garnered 2,892 votes (33.81%).
Mr Nketia did not only beat Mr Ofosu-Ampofo, but two other contenders –Samuel Yaw Adusei and Nii Armah Ashittey, polled 52 and 38 votes, respectively.
Also, Mr Fifi Kwetey won the general secretary slot with 4,543 votes beating Elvis Afriyie Ankrah (1,408) and Dr Peter Boamah Otokunor (2,595).
With the National Organiser contest, Joseph Yammin, beat the incumbent Joshua Akamba and five others to win the slot with 3,730 v0tes. Mr Akamba polled 2,035 votes.
The others had the following results: Henry Osei Akoto (158), Mahdi Mohammed Gibril (535), Sidii Abubakari (607), Soloman Yaw Nkansah (302) and Chief Hamilton Biney Nixon (1,173).
Mr Sammy Gyamfi, was retained as the party’s national communications officer.
Ahead of the 10th National Delegates’ Congress on Saturday, December 17, 2022 at the Accra Sports Stadium in the Greater Accra Region, the party had already held contests to fill the national youth organiser and women’s organiser roles.
George Opare Addo won the youth organiser slot with 533 votes beating his only contender Brogya Genfi who polled 508 votes.
Also, Dr Hanna Louisa Bissiw, retained the women’s organiser slot with 433 votes against her only contender, Margaret Ansei, who polled 362 votes.
