NPP Condemns NDC Plan For ‘Civil War If Supreme Court Declares Akufo-Addo President

The New Patriotic Party has expressed serious concern about the continuous silence of the National Peace Council and other civil society organisations over comments by leading members of the National Democratic Congress that point to a plan to plunge the nation into chaos if the verdict of the Supreme Court hearing the 2012 election petition should go in favour of the petitioners.

President John Dramani Mahama recently told NDC activists he won the 2012 presidential election “cleanly and fairly” and that he was confident the Supreme Court would re-affirm that victory.

A member of the party’s communication team, Gabby Asuming, a couple of days ago, warned that any declaration by the Supreme Court that would make the 2012 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the president of the nation would be a sure recipe for civil war.

“I tell you that, look, this election which the NDC has won genuinely; there is no place for Nana Addo. His Excellency President Mahama will make his four years mandate and there is nobody, Nana Addo, on the face of the pink sheet, to be a President; then, maybe, we are calling for civil war in this country; I am telling you,” the NDC communicator charged on OK FM last week Thursday.

Kakra Essumuah, also a leading member of the NDC, is on record to have declared his plans to support any coup attempt, should Nana Akufo-Addo be declared the president by the Supreme Court.

According to General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie, these comments from leading members of the governing NDC “clearly indicate a deliberate agenda to lead this country into anarchy, by refusing to accept the outcome of the election petition, and this must be a matter of serious concern to all peace-loving people in the country and elsewhere in the whole world.”

In an interview with the New Statesman, Mr Owusu-Afriyie noted that leading members of the NDC “would not come out to make such comments if the party had not planned this evil and sinister agenda against the nation.”

He added: “The fact that the party has not officially come out to condemn these comments should tell everybody that they were only communicating what the party had planned, and this is where we expect the National Peace Council, the religious bodies and other civil society organisations to come out and condemn such utterances.”

Meanwhile, members of the Young Patriots, a youth group of the NPP, have cautioned all well-meaning Ghanaians and groups, especially the New Patriotic Party, to “wake up from their slumber and face the reality” that the outcome of the election petition “will not be accepted by President Mahama and the NDC.”
A statement issued by the group yesterday said it had become urgent “to bring to the attention of the Ghanaian public, a war drumming machine instituted by the NDC and President Mahama” in anticipation of the Supreme Court ruling on the election petition.

According to Young Patriots, President Mahama has not only made comments to the effect that there is only one outcome to be expected from the election petition, but has further “encouraged his party and government officials to set up a machine called the COALITION OF GHANAIAN VOTERS to go round this country and incite Ghanaians to violence in the event that the Supreme Court rules against” him.

“We hope the Peace Council is not on holiday and that the president of the council who recently declared there is peace in Ghana and that nothing will go wrong after the Supreme Court ruling has taken note of these instances and is taking steps to invite the said people to counsel them to preach peace instead of war,” the statement added.

While acknowledging that the security services, especially Police, had upped their game recently, the statement noted that “the continuous lukewarm attitude towards governmental miscreants can only be a recipe for disaster.”

Turning to the election petition, the Young Patriots agreed with yesterday’s decision by the president of the nine-member panel of judges, Justice William Atuguba, to caution the Daily Guide newspaper and the media in general to be circumspect in their reportage on the proceedings of the court.

“We are, however, disappointed that the panel president failed to comment on other statements which have been extensively published and discussed, coming from President Mahama, his deputy minister of information, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, and PNC General Secretary, Bernard Mornah, which are considered perhaps more dangerous to the service of justice.”