President must create platform to resolve NDC's problems

Mr Ben-Habib Siki Abibu, Deputy Volta Regional Youth Organiser of the National Democratic Party, (NDC) has warned that the party risks not actualizing its "Better Ghana" agenda if the internal strife is not purged. He, therefore, appealed to President Mills, as the head of government and party, to summon a stakeholders' forum to address their differences and related problems. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency at the weekend, Mr Abibu suggested that membership of the forum should comprise National and Functional Executive Committees (NEC/ FEC), Council of Elders, Parliamentarians, Ministers, Party Executives and foot soldiers. He made references to the conflict between President Mills and the founder of the party, former President Jerry John Rawlings, on one hand, and that of foot soldiers with others. He said: "These developments have shaken the core foundation of the party, making the super-structures to wobble and any further delay in addressing the confusion would affect all the gains being made and the result would be drifting into political opposition and obscurity." He warned that the youth and posterity would chastise the party, if the trust they reposed in the leadership was not utilized to their advantage. Mr Abibu reminded them that Ghanaians gave the party a mandate to administer the sovereign State of Ghana and President Mills pledged to be a father of all, irrespective of political affiliation, religion, ethnicity, status or class. Mr Abibu noted that the NDC was an impreGhana News Agencyble and solid unit but the same could not be said of it today with the simmering tension, rancour, name-calling, and back-stabbing, which should be uprooted. He said the youth admired the dispatch with which the impasse between University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) and other issues of strike-prone institutions and thought that the same urgency would have been attached to issues of the party to "make sleeping dogs lie." He cautioned against the perceived "agenda of exclusion", saying it was a source of worry to the party's foot soldiers. Mr Abibu said the continuous silence on issues bothering the party was a recipe for disaster, which sometimes degenerates into actions that make the party unpopular. He said there was need to restore the camaraderie that existed within the party in 2008 reminding them that, "a stitch in time saves nine".