Any attempt to impose a presidential candidate on NDC won’t wash - Koku Anyidoho

Former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic (NDC), Samuel Koku Anyidoho, believes whoever in the opposition party in favour of potential candidates for leadership positions going unopposed are simply hollow-hearted members.

Mr Anyidoho, who claimed he was brandished a traitor for insisting that candidates should not be imposed on the party as the norm used to be since 1992 when the NDC was formed, revealed that in the past, parliamentary candidates, national officers and even flagbearers were imposed on the party until the 2000 electoral defeat.

Speaking on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia Morning Show, the former NDC Deputy Chief Scribe held the view that imposition of candidates should never be countenanced, as even the late John Evans Atta Mills, when he was a sitting President, allowed others to compete against him.

To him, anyone championing the imposition of candidates within the umbrella fratenity are not "true and loyal NDC members".

"If you ask me as a true and loyal NDC member, at all times, let there be a contest. President Mills even as a sitting President was contested. When he was being contested, did he ever complained? I was his spokesperson; did I ever go after anybody for contesting President Atta Mills? He threatened to dismiss me if I had gone after Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings."

“ . . for me, any attempt by anybody today to advocate the imposition of a flagbearer, are from persons who are not dyed-in-the-wool NDC members; they should go back to where they came from. Anybody who says that the NDC should impose a candidate on the party is not a true member of the NDC . . . because true NDC members in 2000 decided to move away from this imposition; they don’t want impositions of candidates any longer,” he cautioned.

Touching on the rumoured reports of Dr Kwabena Duffuor's desire to contest NDC’s Presidential Primaries, Koku Anyidoho said that the former Finance Minister is one of President Atta Mills’ legacy equation as he was instrumental in the single digit inflation achievement of the former President.

“But if you ask me, again talking about Mills’ legacy, and a certain Dr Kwabena Duffuor was part of that legacy equation, when it comes to the economy; the 34 months’ single digit inflation, the introduction of single spine pay structure within the challenge the country faced at that time and then the inherited debts that Atta Mills Administration came to meet, and being able to reach out to the international donor communities to be able to look favourably upon Ghana. Ghana became the shining star in terms of economic management, because Prof. Mills had his own economic advisory team,” he mentioned.

He professed his love for Dr Duffuor for the fact that he [Dr Kwabena Duffuor] is among the people with the ability to succeed; thus, he has established businesses and that makes him possess the qualities to lead the NDC.

“ . . and for me I love people who are able to establish because it is not easy to establish; Dr Kwabena Duffuor has established businesses and now he is the head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies. He owns it and he heads it as well. If you give that man and they are putting him out there and they are saying that he has certain qualities, you can’t rap those qualities away from him. Indeed, he has those qualities; you don’t have to manufacture those qualities,” he professed.