Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joseph Kwabena Ade Coker, has rubbished a Daily Guide newspaper publication that the former First Lady and a National Vice Chairman of the party, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, has finally put paid to speculations about her presidential ambitions by declaring her intention to run for the party’s 2012 primary.
He said people should not attach any seriousness to the story because there is no iota of truth in it.
The Daily Guide newspaper on Thursday, February 3rd, carried a publication with the screaming headline, I’m Running – Konadu Rawlings Tells NDC Elders, asserting that the former first lady has finally confirmed that she will want to be a candidate for the Party’s 2012 presidential election.
According to the story, Mrs. Rawlings officially made known her presidential ambition at a meeting of the NDC’s Council of Elders held in Accra last Tuesday and chaired by Harry Sawyer, a former Minister of Education. The publication further said the meeting with NDC elders was considered as a traditional knocking ceremony, but the party bigwigs were so shocked to even utter a word after Nana Konadu made the announcement.
She is even reported to have given a lecture on why she wants to be President of Ghana and vowed to pick NDC nomination forms when the time was due.
Speaking in an interview on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo morning show, Mr. Ade Coker said people are just bent on bothering the former first lady. According to him, there is no truth in the publication because at the party’s NEC meeting, there was not a whisper or whimper of any such intention. He added that the Daily Guide newspaper is causing financial loss to the state because people will rush to buy the newspaper when actually the story they are rushing for is false.
“People want to worry her, she was at the NEC meeting, the founder and Vice President was also there and we had a long chat but there was nothing that showed that the former first lady had brought a letter concerning her intention to contest. The meeting went on for over 5 hours but there was not even a whisper or whimper that she will contest. Daily Guide will only cause financial loss to the country because people will rush to buy the paper because of the story which is false by using their hard-earned cash,” he emphasized.
He noted that their meeting was cordial and only focused on how to move the party forward.
But the Editor of the Daily Guide Newspaper, Fortune Alimi, who stoutly defended the publication, insists that the story is factual. He sarcastically urged Mr. Adde-Coker to call on him (Alimi) in order to be properly briefed about the latest happenings within his own party.
“Ade Coker got it all wrong and need to check his facts within the party …since Mr. Adde-Coker is not a member of Council of Elders there is a probability that he would not be privy to every information,” he noted.