Dr Josiah-Aryeh (left) receiving the certificate from Amadu Sulley. Inset: NDP members at the EC office yesterday.
Supporters of the newly formed National Democratic Party (NDP) registered their presence on Ghana’s political plane yesterday when they were given a final certificate to operate as a fully-fledged political party after meeting all conditions.
The atmosphere at the forecourt of the Electoral Commission (EC) where the leadership of the party received the certificate and at the Kokomlemle headquarters of the NDP was one that caught the attention of passersby.
Scores of people, in party T-shirts, some of whom rode on motorbikes and in a fleet of vehicles, went into wild jubilation.
Interim National Chairman of the party, which broke ranks from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Nii Armah Josiah-Aryeh, indicated the party’s preparedness to field presidential and parliamentary candidates in the upcoming December 7, 2012 general elections.
Leading members of the party, including Interim General Secretary Dr Joseph Mamboah-Rockson and his colleague treasurer, Robert Quaye Tetteh, Dr Kwasi Ofei Agyemang, Dr David Sunu and Joseph Bediako were present at the presentation.
The NDP is strongly linked to the former first family, Jerry John Rawlings and his wife Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, with the former First Lady tipped to lead it.
Even though Dr. Mamboah-Rockson had indicated that the party’s National Executive Committee had agreed to name former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings as its flag-bearer for the 2012 elections, his chairman, Dr. Josiah-Aryeh, would not be drawn into what he called “speculations of who becomes the leader of the party”.
Dr. Ayeh said, “A leader will be decided by a democratic electoral process of the party’s internal mechanism”.
Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings
He did not rule out a possible run for the position by Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, saying, “Let’s wait and see. You never say never in politics.”
Dr Josiah-Aryeh charged supporters of the party to go out there “into the grassroots, into the branches, into the districts and into the constituencies and even into the regions and spread our message”.
“From today, the iconic white dove of the NDP is airborne. We have already said the sky is the limit but for us the sky is limitless because we believe that our historic task and obligations to Ghanaians and black people everywhere across the globe is to realise what some of our forebears went down to their graves fighting for,” he noted.
For him, the issuance of the certificate by the EC would have significant consequences for Ghana as a country, noting, “The politics of this country will from today be reconsidered and reshuffled and realigned; for the NDP has arrived.”
Having taken what he described as “the first decisive step on a long on hard-wards road”, Dr Josiah-Aryeh, who is also a former General Secretary of the NDC said, “Together with the indomitable will of our people, our only destination can be victory.”
Though he admitted the road to victory would be “very hard”, the NDP chief urged supporters of the party to work hand-in-hand to “achieve for Ghanaians the great enterprise that we have embarked upon”.
That, he said, was because “we want to realise the best in ourselves to unleash the talents of our people so that the world will turn around and say ‘see what is happening in Africa’” since it is the belief of the NDP that “under the appropriate leadership and in the appropriate enabling environment, we can unleash for Ghanaians and for Africans the best that is it in the Ghanaian and the African”.
“So hence forward, we will operate as a political party and we say to every Ghanaian that we will engage in clean politics; for us, the politics of insults is a thing of the past because we know that the scales have fallen from the eyes of our peoples and rationality and reason have taken centre stage,” he noted.
Deputy Commissioner of the EC in-charge of Finance and Administration, Amadu Sulley, charged the party to endeavour to adhere to the rules of the game and to do well to fulfill the provisions of Section 15 of Act 574 which mandates political parties to put in place national, regional, district and constituency offices and furnish the Commission with their addresses and location with the election of substantive officers.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu