John Mahama Fights Nketia �As Wrangling Over Control Of NDC Intensifies

Credible information reaching the "New Statesman" indicates that the battle for control over the ruling National Democratic Congress has reached alarming proportions, with President John Dramani Mahama and Johnson Asiedu Nketia, General Secretary of the party, locked in a feud of gargantuan proportions over the destiny of the party. Already, President Mahama and his loyalists have begun sponsoring persons to contest for the various positions in the party, following fears that �General Mosquito�, with the able support of the Ahwois, Kojo Tsikata, Alban Bagbin, E.T. Mensah and others are running a serious campaign to have the President unseated as Presidential Candidate of the NDC, in favour of a new candidate for 2016. With the NDC�s own internal polling showing that President Mahama is becoming a liability, coupled with the Fante Confederation and the Volta Caucus uniting over the cold treatment President Mahama has handed them in his administration, the resolve of Johnson Asiedu Nketia and his backers in trying to topple President Mahama has been strengthened. �As we speak, the President is not concentrating on �Building the Better Ghana� we promised in the 2012 Manifesto from which we won the 2012 elections. The President�s main concern is to ensure that his men are elected into positions at the party level to ensure that in 2015 or so, when the party elects a new candidate to contest for the 2016 election, he will be the man,� a source at the NDC headquarters told the New Statesman. The source further intimated that there is a growing consensus amongst the hierarchy of the party at the National Headquarters that now is not the best time for the scrapping of the NDC�s Electoral College system in favour of the �universal membership suffrage� as proposed by General Mosquito, which sought to ensure that every card-bearing member of good standing has the opportunity to participate in the selection of the party�s candidates by voting directly in their respective polling stations where they are members. �Though members and sympathizers of the NDC know very well that President Mahama has failed and is failing woefully in governing this nation, should General Mosquito�s plan of ensuring everyone votes to elect a Presidential Candidate succeed, Mahama is likely to sail through. This is because, at the moment, the masses of NDC supporters will know that there is none better placed to beat an NPP candidate than Mahama,� the source noted. The source continued, �It is therefore against this background that the NDC will maintain the status quo regarding its Electoral College. This implies that whoever gets his �people� elected as polling station, constituency, regional and national executives win the day. This is what is leading to the big fight in the NDC, which if we don�t take care will break up the party as the fallouts from the elections will be too injurious to mend.� The fight between President Mahama and Asiedu Nketia has pitched many factions against the so-called Gonja Mafia or Octopus that is dedicated to advancing the cause of the President. The fight is getting increasingly fierce between the Fante Confederacy, led by the once very powerful Ahwoi brothers, and the Gonja Mafia. The Ahwois, who exercised the greatest amount of power and control in the NDC under the presidency of the late President John Evans Mills, have now been relegated to the background in the scheme of affairs of the current administration under President Mahama. They are desperately seeking to take back the party, by sponsoring the boss of the National Disaster Management Organization, Kofi Portuphy, to contest the chairmanship of the party. The NADMO boss has confirmed his plans to contest the chairmanship race of the party. Members of the Fante Confederacy believe that with Mr. Portuphy as the chairman of the party, they could return to exercise the kind of control they used to have in the scheme of affairs of the party. The New Statesman can also disclose that some ministers of state are also forming factions to counter what they see us as the �spreading tentacles� of the Gonja Octopus. Information available indicates that members of the Gonja Octopus are trying to run their ministries for them, by determining what the priority contracts are and who should be awarded such contracts. Another faction is made up of the large and influential group of former ministers in the Mills administration who did not find favour with the Mahama administration. They are in this faction with some disappointed NDC Members of Parliament.