A former Member of Parliament (MP) for La Dade Kotopon, Nii Amasah Namoale is bitter about the decision of the top echelons of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to impose former President John Dramani Mahama on the party fateful as the party’s presidential candidate for the 2020 polls.
He sees Saturday’s ‘Unity Walk’ with Mahama in Tamale, an event being organized by the Northern Regional executives of the umbrella family, as one of the numerous ways adopted by the party to impose Mr Mahama on them as the party’s flag bearer for election 2020.
The decision of the party, he noted, is warmly welcomed, but indirectly cautioned that the choice of Mr Mahama as flag bearer of the party for 2020 will let them stay in opposition for long.
Interacting with Akwasi Nsiah on Kasapa News on Kasapa 102.5 FM in Accra on Friday, the former deputy Minister for Food and Agriculture noted that one of the key factors that caused the defeat of the NDC in the 2016 general elections was apathy, believing that the leadership style of Mr Mahama contributed to this.
“If it is the Northern Regional executives of the NDC that is organizing this ‘Unity Walk’ with President Mahama, there is no problem because if they want to project their son to come and contest, fine. But if they want to impose a candidate on us – okay fine, we will accept it and go to the polls in 2020,” he noted.
When asked if he strongly believes the ‘Unity Walk’ is a way of imposing Mr Mahama on the NDC party fateful as their presidential candidate for election 2020, Mr Namoale retorted, “there are so many ways of killing a cat. I don’t have any problem but we lost the 2016 general elections because of apathy. If you look at the votes the NPP polled, it is almost the same as what they got in the 2012 general elections while that of the NDC dropped. So, the question is why did our members decide to stay in their various homes and not go and vote?
“So, if you still want people to sit at home, fine but for me, I will not sit at home. I will go and cast my vote and also mobilize my people to do same but how do we convince others?”