A former Minister of Trade and Industries, Mr Daniel Abodakpi, has announced his intention to vie for the position of National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) with a declaration to work to keep all parts of the NDC tree alive and root the party firmly into the future.
Launching his bid at a press conference in Accra on Thursday, Mr Abodakpi said his mission was to reconnect the NDC party to its original core values and to its mass base.
In his view, there was some level of anger and despondency among the footsoldiers and cadres of the party, because they had been left out in the decision making process at the grass-roots level.
To reverse this trend, Mr Abodakpi said his vision was to provide a new dynamic leadership around which the collective energies of the party, including the united cadres group, would revolve.
Reasons to contest
Mr Abodakpi said his reasons to contest was not a personal one but a decision born out of an extensive and broad consultations across the spectrum of the party.
“It is a call for the NDC to have a new lease of life and it has become a very urgent one and the call cannot be ignored”, he declared.
He stressed that the reason therefore was not an inordinate one. He explained that having played a founding role in the party and also worked and sacrificed alongside many other comrades to build the party, he would see it a remiss on his part to ignore the call by the rank and file of the party to him to be the party’s chairman.
Mr Abodakpi is the first to publicly and at an official function to declare his intention to contest the chairmanship position once the go-ahead has been given by the National Executive Committee of the party.
The National Executive, at a meeting last week, fixed October 26 and 27, this year for the national congress of the party.
Apart from Mr Abodakpi, media reports have come out with names of people expressing their interest in the chairmanship race. They include Mr Kofi Portuphy, National Co-ordinator of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO); Mr Ofosu Ampofo a former Local Government Minister; and the incumbent, Dr Kwabena Agyei.
Mrs Betty Mould Iddrissu, who the media circulated reports that she nursing the ambition to contest the chairmanship race, has, however, come out publicly to debunk the rumour.