National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has described the party’s 2016 embarrassing defeat to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as a ‘fatal political accident”.
According to Solomon Nkaansah, some people in the party were only sought for their selfish interest rather than working for the Mahama-led government to be retained in power.
“Some con guys only came to wine and dine with Mahama and not for the party. Defeat in party is like a commercial car involved in an accident. It brings injuries and victims get traumatized. Some are still asleep and some don’t even get hurt. If you’re the car owner you would know it was a fatal accident for the NDC party.
“We were defeated fatally. It was a fatal accident for the NDC party. You can’t lose close to a million gap in an election and that is why I think our lost was massive” he stated.
Former President John Mahama became the first incumbent President to lose an election since Ghana returned to multi-party democracy in 1992.
His party performed abysmally in the last year’s election polling 44.4 percent of valid votes cast.
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) led by then candidate Nana Akufo-Addo polled 53.85 percent of the valid votes cast to become Ghana’s fifth President of the Fourth Republic.
Many of the leading members of the NDC were shocked at the gargantuan defeat after running the most expensive electioneering campaign to retain John Mahama in power.
But speaking on Adom FM’s Morning Show “Dwaso Nsem” Thursday, Solomon Nkansah conceded his party cannot absolve itself of the blame because the party lacked good communicators to match up to the then opposition NPP.
He believes the media is only trying to force the party to divulge details of what actually caused its defeat as unraveled by the Kwesi Botchway Committee but “that would not happen.
Solomon Nkansah advised his party members to turn on a new leaf and win the heart of Ghanaians and follow recommendation by the Kwesi Botchwey report.
“In every governance, performance is part of communication so if there aren’t good messengers to sell the product the people won’t buy. The [Kwesi Botchwey] report brought recommendations and has indicated we take the grassroots participation serious. With this, I urge my party members to be circumspect and follow due process” he stressed.
Listen to Solomon
