Tension Rises In NDC

THE BATTLE line has now been drawn for a possible clash between supporters of former President Jerry Rawlings and those of President Atta Mills in the National Democratic Congress (NDC), following the recent attacks on some NDC members.

Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings (FONKAR), a group loyal to the Rawlingses, has threatened to retaliate in a brutal fashion if attacks on its members by supporters of President Mills do not cease with immediate effect.

Blowing the war horn, Brogya Genfi, FONKAR Communications Director for Ashanti Region said, “A perpetuation of violence against FONKAR will elicit reprisal attacks since we must protect our members at all cost.”

Brogya Genfi, who was among a delegation that visited Mr Rawlings after the NDC Sunyani congress, where the NDC founder said he was not ready to die for cowards, was reacting to last Friday’s brutal attack on a FONKAR member in Ejisu on the alleged instructions of the Ashanti regional chairman, Yaw Obimpeh.

He also mentioned the recent detention of George Boateng, another member, by operatives of the National Security without any charge.

The bodyguards of the Ashanti Regional NDC Chairman, Yaw Obimpeh, had allegedly beaten Joseph Yaw Dosu, FONKAR Coordinator for Ejisu/Juaben constituency in the Ashanti region.

The story said Yaw Dosu was brutally attacked and beaten by bodyguards of Yaw Obimpeh, during a meeting last Friday, for daring to advise the regional chairman to desist from using insulting language at a public function.

In recent times, there have been internal squabbles, sometimes leading to bloody attacks as Nii Lantey Vanderpuye’s boys pounced on the Odododiodioo constituency women’s organiser. The case has been reported to the Adabraka police in Accra.

But Mr Genfi said, “President Mills should rise above the pettiness and call these disuniting elements such as Yaw Obimpeh to order before things get out of hand.”In a press release, he said, “Failure on the part of the President to call these disuniting elements to order will give us an indication of his compliance in all these orchestrations against Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings and her friends.”

Mr. Genfi said the Ashanti regional NDC chairman, an ardent supporter of President Mills, was known for his character of violence against others who disagreed with him.

“Mr. Obimpeh has pursued an agenda of harassment towards NDC members who came out in their numbers to welcome the former NDC flagbearer contender and former First Lady Nana Konadu on her ‘thank you’ tour of the Ashanti region recently.

“The NDC Ashanti regional chairman also has the history of using ‘machomen’ to intimidate and harass his perceived opponents. Mr. Yaw Obimpeh must be stopped for the interest of party unity.

“In 2010, after his election as regional chairman at Mampong, he sent the same ‘machomen’ to beat up a deputy propaganda secretary of Asawase constituency, Yakubu Tony Aidoo, for disagreeing with him, and this is on public record.”

FONKAR, he said, saw those attacks on its members as a deliberate ploy by supporters of President Mills who were bent on disuniting and disintegrating the NDC.

He recounted that just recently, another FONKAR member, George Boateng, got detained by police for no apparent reason, adding that several examples of violent attacks on members of FONKAR by President Mills’s supporters could be mentioned since the end of congress in Sunyani in July.

Genfi noted that FONKAR had pursued nothing but party cohesiveness. “FONKAR has no other interest other than the survival of the NDC. It is therefore very sad when people close to the president continually act provocatively- even violently- towards members of FONKAR before, during and after the NDC congress in Sunyani.”

He said those attacks on FONKAR members had shown that indeed President Mills’s supporters did not want peace in the NDC. “It only re-enforces the notion that certain elements in the party are bent on destroying the NDC and its ideals in order to enable the CPP to survive.”

FONKAR, Genfi noted, wished to condemn these violent and physical attacks on their members by “haters of our dear party tradition and fanatics and sycophants of president Mills”.

Mr Rawlings had told Brogya Genfi and Joseph Yamin, Ashanti regional secretary of the party, during the visit to his Ridge office that he wasn’t leaving NDC but made an emphatic statement that he wasn’t going to campaign for Professor Mills and that he would not “fight or follow cowards to war because if you follow cowards to war, you will end up fighting alone”.

Source: I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr., Kumasi