[ 2014-01-31 ]

Open letter to Jake
DECISION TO HOLD A DECENTRALIZED NATIONAL
CONFERENCE IS ALIEN TO OUR TRADITION

Let me be quick to state my vehement disagreement
with you on your decision to upset the
constitution of our great party by holding a
decentralized national conference. It is lazy,
defeatist, inconsistent, unacceptable and betrays
the very letter and spirit of our constitution.

This decision is completely alien to our tradition
- it is not known to us and neither was it known
to our forebears.

This proposal/ decision and the reasons you adduce
to it are striking and it suggests to me that you
never took the time to thoroughly think through
the ramifications before tabling and spearheading
this wild preposition.

Mr. Chairman, may I remind you that a formidable
party was bequeathed to you by your predecessors
and it is incumbent on you that you hand over a
more formidable or at least an equally formidable
party to your successor as was handed to you. That
is absolutely non-negotiable, even though your own
comments suggest that this would not be the case.

I read with disgust portions of a letter which you
wrote in response to the Honorable Member of
Parliament for Suhum, Mr. Fredrick Opare-Ansah
citing cost and also advancing the argument that
law was made for man and not otherwise to cement
your decision. I don’t believe this is an
exceptional circumstance that requires jettisoning
a constitutional provision. The law is explicit
and unambiguous and I am glad you readily admit to
that fact.

However, what this party should discourage and
cannot tolerate is the sort of precedent you seek
to set which is aimed at undermining the base and
authority of the constitution based on which you
were elected and which you swore to uphold.

Our party must be seen to be consistent with its
beliefs of upholding the rule of law and not man.
Not too long ago, our party was in court to
challenge the wanton disregard of such
constitutional and legal provisions, such as the
‘No Biometric Verification, No Vote’ and
requirement for Presiding Officers to sign Pink
Sheets, by the Electoral Commission at the apex
court of the land.

Mr. Chairman, where lies our consistency and moral
authority if we circumvent our own party’s
constitution? The party MUST not be run at the
whims and caprices of any individual or interest.
It should be the collectivity and the interest of
the mass of our supporters that should matter.

Mr. Chairman, your argument about costing and the
lack of funds to hold the National conference at
one location is the weakest among the already weak
chain of arguments and it is a clear indictment on
your administration.

Are you saying under your stewardship a Ghana's
biggest mass party cannot afford to hold a
National conference at a centralized location? A
party with so many fine brains, resourceful
persons and a support base of over 5million cannot
raise enough funds to meet once a year? Our
forebears must be turning in their graves

Respectfully, I also doubt the figures being
bandied around by yourself, your appointed Chief
of Staff and the General-secretary in which GHC
1million, GHC 1.6million and GHC 1.2million have
been respectively mentioned as the cost of the
National conference at one location.

The conflicting figures, clearly places the whole
costing supposedly done into disrepute. For many
of us, the figures being bandied are absolutely
incredible and simply outrageous to say the
least.

What all concerned Party sympathizers and
supporters demand is a proper costing that should
be done and tabled at National Council for a
proper interrogation and scrutiny.

Mr. Chairman, we (including your good self) all
know that one of the strengths of a good leader in
an organization is the ability to raise and
marshal resources in order to be able to meet
expenditures and prosecute the agenda of the
organization.

Your self-confessed inability to live up to this
basic leadership attribute is a clear testimonial
of your gross failure and one of the biggest
reasons why you should be resoundingly rejected by
our party delegates come 1st March.

We cannot have leaders who sit and wait for the
flag bearer to raise funds only for them to
disburse and in certain cases, mismanage. A party
like ours has the capacity to raise enough funds
to fund its activities.

I believe the party must carry the flag bearer and
not the other way round. This business of no money
until a flag bearer is elected to go and look for
money to run party activities is unacceptable.

Mr. Chairman, this latest action of yours has not
only opened up our party to public ridicule once
again but fractured your credentials and chances
of re-election, which were already bleak, if I
should add.

I will not belabor the point by citing the
numerous advantages of abiding by the
constitutional provision of holding the National
conference at a centralized location- I don't
believe you can claim ignorance of that.

Moreover, the framers of our constitution can
certainly not be wrong on that.

In the face of such a prodigious dissatisfaction
and outright rejection of your decision by the
rank and file of our party, I humbly urge you to
reconsider and take all the necessary steps to do
away with such an unpopular decision before the
ghosts of our forebears is invoked on you.

With these few words, I am done Mr. Chairman. See
you at congress!



Very truly yours,

Chief Obosu Mohammed

NPP Member, Mfantseman

Source - Chief Obosu Mohammed

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