<<Print>>

General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah has said that issues and personalities that chased away Dr. Obed Asamoah from the ruling party had themselves been eliminated. �Now the barking dog whose actions forced you out of the NDC no longer exists, so I would have been surprised if you had continued to stay outside�� Asiedu-Nketia said on Saturday at a home-coming ceremony of the Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) members who were rejoining the NDC at the Arts Centre in Accra. DFP officially announced that it had joined forces with the NDC to beat the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in December 2012, and endorsed President Atta Mills�s candidature for next year�s polls. The DFP moved a motion for a formal merger with the NDC. With this development, some DFP members were set to pick up appointments in the impending reshuffle by President John Evans Atta Mills in order to compensate them for their decision to join him for the 2012 elections. Bede Zeideng, DFP General Secretary and Nii Okaidja Adamafio were said to be among the people noted for appointments while Dr Obed Asamoah might be selected as Speaker of Parliament. Under the deal, according Mr Ziedeng, DFP would be allocated two National Executive Committee positions at the national level, one Regional Executive Committee position and one constituency executive position. That arrangement, according to him, would enable the DFP to properly integrate into the ruling party. The divorce from the NPP and new marriage with the NDC, according to them, materialised after numerous deliberations between leaders of the two parties following some meetings between President Atta Mills and Dr. Asamoah. �It is true that the NPP has elected Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo again as its flagbearer for elections 2012, but significantly, the raison d��tre of our departure from the NDC has evaporated,� Obed Asamoah said. �The moving of the motion for the merger of the two parties is in accordance with article 49 of DFP�s constitution because the party�s aim is to bring together like-minded people for the purpose of galvanizing all Ghanaians who have virtually lost hope and confidence in the political establishment in the country,� the Dr. Asamoah stated. He said contrary to other opinions, their decision to go back to the NDC was not predicated on the prospects of wealth or power, but on the contrary, it was one of courage and commitment given that their spirit could best be at home in a structure they helped to build. Dr Asamoah, who in 2006, led some members of the NDC including leading personalities to form the DFP, acknowledged that though the decision of the party to merge with the NDC had received support, there had been some disputes. Though the demeanour of many of the members at the event showed they were against the merger with the NDC, he said dissenting ones would not weaken their resolve or determination, but would spur them on to work harder for success. He denied the perception that their 2005 departure from the NDC after the Koforidua congress was based on the election of Professor Atta Mills as the party�s flag bearer. �Our departure from the NDC was more because of the brutalities meted on us at the Koforidua Congress than anything else. It had nothing to do with the election of a presidential candidate,� Dr. Obed Asamoah stressed. He therefore called on the rank and file to go back to the NDC with a spirit of forgiveness, dedication and service, adding that �we will understand if DFP members who came from other parties wish to retrace their roots.� Their actions, he noted, was their democratic choice. �Let us go back to the NDC with a spirit of forgiveness, dedication and service,� he said, adding that �the DFP had elements from diverse political groups although the leadership and membership was largely from the NDC stock. �We will understand if those members of non-NDC stock wish to retrace their roots. That is a democratic choice they must be allowed to make but they cannot be allowed to frustrate the will of the majority,� Dr Asamoah said. The General Secretary of the NDC, Johnson Asiedu-Nketiah, who claimed to be the architect of Dr. Obed Asamoah�s safe departure from NDC�s famous Legon Congress, recounted the contribution of former NDC members who formed the DFP and said the merger was a �warm home coming�. �I see you as principled people who left the NDC due to your abhorrence of abuse, insults, vilification, lies and intemperate language in political discourse.� Asiedu-Nketiah, a former manager of the Seikwa-based Nkoranman Rural Bank in Brong Ahafo, said over the years, the party was used to imposing presidential candidates and leaders on members, but the new NDC had made it impossible for anyone to take the party backwards. �Internal democracy has come to stay as we have decided to have internal cleansing because any process of change rises from ideas,� Asiedu-Nketia noted. He assured the prodigal sons and daughters that the new wind of change in the NDC, especially the deepening of internal democratic principles, had come to stay. The formation of the DFP was first announced by Dr Obed Asamoah, former National chairman of the NDC and President Mills�s lecturer at the University of Ghana, in February 2006 due to the differences he had with the NDC founder and former President Jerry John Rawlings. On October 20, 2006, the Electoral Commission presented the final electoral certificate to the party to operate as a political party under the 1992 Constitution. In accordance with the Political Parties Act, the party contested the 2008 elections but performed abysmally when it threw its weight behind NPP�s Nana Akufo-Addo in the run-off.