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STATEMENT: Attempt To Cripple NDC In Kwabre East District Ladies and gentlemen of the press, welcome and thank you for honouring our invitation at such short notice and we sincerely appreciate your efforts. Coalition of Kwabre East NDC Youth Groups is made up of the leadership of the various youth groups in Kwabre East who in one way or the other worked tirelessly to ensure that H.E John Dramani Mahama was elected President in the 2012 elections. We will like to first add our voices to the numerous voices of reason in congratulating His Excellency John Dramani Mahama for winning a free, fair and transparent election and we look forward to helping the president work for a BETTER GHANA. Governance starts at the very grass root and so our desire to see the president succeed has necessitated our call for competent hands to assume leadership positions because failure is NOT an option. It is therefore in this light that after several meetings with the various youth and opinion leaders within Kwabre East, it has been unanimously agreed that the renomination of Adams Iddisah is NOT and CANNOT be in the best interest of the party but in the interest of a select few whose parochial interest falls short of the principles and tenets of social democracy. We believe by the end of this conference, it would have been clear that the President was misled in renominating a non performing Adams Iddisah because it will have serious repercussions on the fortunes of the party in subsequent elections. This is because an action that is rewarded is most certainly repeated and another four years of non performance and incompetence is not in the interest of the party. Against the background that Kwabre East is an NPP stronghold, one cannot help but admire the courage, determination and hard work put up by Hon Fatao Iliyasu to increase the NDC presidential votes from a little over 10,000 in 2008 to 18,092 in 2012. This increase, but for internal sabotage, would have been far higher. The internal sabotage was largely a deliberate and calculated attempt by Adams Iddisah to make sure that Hon Fatao Iliyasu did not stand a chance of representing the party in parliament. This sabotage, however, had an effect on the general performance of the party and hence makes it absolutely absurd to see such a person rewarded for virtually working against his own party�s fortunes! If not sabotage;  Why else will Adams Iddisah be absent from the constituency campaigns but for three events? ie. The launch of the constituency campaign, the visit of Mrs. Betty Mould Iddrisu and the visit of the president to the district  Why else will Adams Iddisah keep hold of jerseys and footballs that were meant for distribution during the campaign?  Why else will Adams Iddisah reject wise counsel from the NDC parliamentary candidate to reshape roads that were in bad state during the electioneering period?  Why else will Adams Iddisah keep hold of streetlights for communities until after the elections? This is a man who had openly bragged about his said tribal ties with the president and had said that regardless of his contributions to the campaign he will certainly be retained. His retention therefore came as a shock not because it was unexpected but because of the message of tribal bigotry his retention is sending across. Such a trait has no place in a social democracy and has long been known to be a monopoly of the Danquah Busia tradition. Does it mean therefore that we should all suspend our political activism for the NDC until such time someone from our tribe takes the reigns of power? We do not intend to dwell much on actions like the absence of the Parliamentary candidate�s sticker and posters on any of the DCE�s vehicles but these acts are alien to the party in this constituency. A classical example is during the 2008 elections when Hon Fatao Iliyasu was the campaign coordinator in the constituency. He printed more than 2000 t shirts and posters of both the parliamentary and presidential candidates. He indiscriminately worked to the best of his abilities to ensure an NDC victory and made several contributions to that effect. Could it be because the party delegates rejected him for Hon Fatao Iliyasu during the parliamentary primaries even in the face of huge monetary inducements? Adams Iddisah is the first DCE in the history of the District to have his budget rejected because he listed a school that had already been built as a new project. The same budget also listed as a six classroom block a school that was a four classroom block. There were also gargantuan differences in figures presented to the house to be passed as against the ones agreed upon by the Finance & Administration Committee. This incurred the wrath of the Assembly members and nearly resulted in his impeachment. This is a man who was head of government business and his actions served to portray the government in bad light. In this light, we have reason to believe that the assembly members, who but for the intervention of some highly placed people had planned to pass a vote of no confidence in the DCE, see his renomination as the perfect opportunity to finally kick him out. This will be an indictment on the judgement of His Excellency and an embarrassment to the party when Adams Iddisah is rejected at first glance. We are however absolved from any blame in the likeliest event Adams Iddisah is rejected because as social democrats, we believe the interest of any one person should not supersede the collective interest of the party. Ladies and gentlemen of the Press, is it not interesting to know that the constituency presented 2 polling station agents for both parliamentary and presidential as against the 4 polling station agents directed by the party�s hierarchy? Curious minds therefore wanted to know what happened to the money sent to be paid those extra two and the party�s representative at the District Coalition Center. Surprisingly, even some polling agents are yet to be paid and the agents at the coalition center were also not paid a penny. We understand from the party�s executive in the constituency that Adams Iddisah is still holding onto the money. We once again find it difficult to understand why Adams Iddisah took GHc 2,000 from the District assembly to bus people from the District to the President�s inauguration on the 7th January, 2013 yet no person or group of persons were bussed from Kwabre East to the event. This is the height of CORRUPTION and DECEIT which should not be entertained by the President since he desires to run a transparent government. In 2008, Adams Iddisah was imposed on us against our will and in 2011; we delivered a verdict on his performance when he was contested by Hon Fatao Iliyasu in the constituency parliamentary primaries prior the 2012 elections. His defeat was among other things intended to send a strong signal to the appointing authorities that it was time to effect change in Kwabre East. If that message was however not clear enough then the party hierarchy and whoever played a role in his renomination should expect a CLEARER MESSAGE this time in a language we are sure they will perfectly understand. It is worth noting that the 2008 parliamentary candidate of the NDC was overlooked in the appointment of a District Chief Executive for the district even though he had expressed interest in the position amidst a convention to compensate parliamentary candidates who lost their constituencies with the position of DCEship. History has just been repeated with the renomination of Adams Iddisah and this is dangerous for the party�s fortunes in subsequent elections and a deterrent for otherwise competent persons not to express interest in representing the party as parliamentary candidates. It is sickening and disgusting that you give your all for the party as parliamentary candidate only to be overlooked when the party wins the election, in favour of someone who was missing throughout the campaign but is believed to have tribal ties to the president or has enough monetary resources to induce persons closer to the president. We cannot end without expressing our disappointment in Hon Samed Akalilu who is an assembly member in the constituency and also a communication team member for the region yet has refused to take steps to call the attention of the presidency to the rot and shady dealings under the watch of Adams Iddisah. We can no longer keep quiet and expect others to fight for us and so Hon Samed Akalilu should declare his stands as to what he makes of the renomination of Adams Iddisah whose appointment we believe will only run down the government. In as much as we are appalled by the renomination of Adams Iddisah, we feel Hon Fatao Iliyasu might have contributed to this because there were several attempts to call the presidency�s attention to the rot and displeasure in Kwabre East through mass protests and petitions but whenever Hon Fatao got wind of it, he took steps which he claims are in the interest of the party to calm down tensions and prevail on us not to go ahead with our plans. This prevented us from presenting a true and accurate state of the district to the presidency. In this light, we demand the following: 1. The party�s executives should make their position on the matter known and come clean if they played any role in the retention of Adams Iddisah 2. Persons who have the party at heart should advice Adams Iddisah to do the honourable thing by rejecting his renomination by the president in the interest of the party and the good people of Kwabre East 3. The President must as a matter of urgency do a �Rashid Pelpuo� by revoking his renomination of Adams Iddisah since we believe due diligence was not done in this regard 4. Any one person or groups of persons who played a role in the renomination of Adams Iddisah should issue an unqualified apology to the people of Kwabre East, for the trauma we are suffering because of the renomination of someone who has clearly shown that he is there to serve only his interest but not that of the masses. We look forward to our demands being met in the coming days or we may consider staging series of massive protests and/or repainting the constituency party office in colours other than that of the NDC. It is the considered view of the coalition that the option of withdrawing our support for the party should be a last resort but remains as viable as any of the actions we may take in the event that our demands are not met. The Honourable Assembly members of Kwabre East have a task and it is our collective belief that they will uphold the sanctity of their offices and the good name of the district by REJECTING Adams Iddisah, in the event that the appointing authorities for reasons best known to them decide to stick with the renomination of Adams Iddisah. At that point, history will have it that when Kwabre East District was on the brink of moral collapse, this current crop of Assembly members fought for the integrity of the district. Thank You Ladies and Gentlemen of the press. NDC, EYE ZU! EYE ZA!! NDC, E DEY BE KEKE!!! Sawadogo Mahmoud Convener, Coalition of Kwabre East NDC Youth Groups