Groups support Spio, Goosie for NDC flagbearership

A group calling itself ‘Branch Executives for Spio’ has endorsed Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah as the most ideal candidate who can deliver victory for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 elections.

According to the group, Mr Spio-Garbrah stood out among all the names coming up because his integrity was intact and could not be smeared with “corruption, incompetence, ineptitude and the disregard for party loyalty, party elders, foot soldiers and the endless mediocrity.

The group made its position known at a press conference in Accra which was addressed by its Chairman, Nana Baah, a member of the Madina Constituency of the NDC.

He said if all the aspiring candidates for the NDC flagbearership were candid and truthful, they would admit that Mr Spio-Garbrah had been tested in 2006 and could be relied upon in 2020 for victory for the NDC.

“Mr Spio-Garbrah’s intelligence, articulation of ideas and the knowledge to turn things around in this country makes him the unmatched candidate for other aspirants of the NDC,” he remarked.

No corruption tag

Going into the 2020 general elections, he said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would have no corruption tag on Mr Spio-Garbrah to match the NPP’s corrupt deeds in government such as the Ameri deal over which the Minister of Energy had been sacked.

He said NDC delegates at the branch and constituency levels had spoken clearly by voting out 85 to 90 per cent of the 2016 executive members of the party at the recent NDC branch and constituency level polls.

“We believe that the same will happen in the regional and national elections of the old NDC executive members across the country. It has been a ‘tsunami’, taking away all the old executive members of our great party and bringing in new blood,” he said.

The only hope for the NDC

According to Nana Baah, Mr Spio-Garbrah was the only person who could turn the fortunes of the NDC around towards the 2020 general elections, raise the morale of foot soldiers and bring in disenchanted sympathisers of the party.

“We want to remind and warn that we NDC executive members and delegates will resist the ‘outspoken minority’s’ arrogant and intolerant attitude over the ‘silent majority’ of members of the NDC who will not encourage or vote John Mahama for fear that he will be attacked by the NPP with the corruption tag all the time,” he maintained.

For Nana Baah and those who share the same viewpoint, “the elections will remain his attack versus NPP’s attack. Let’s avoid that mess and elect someone who is clean and can ask the NPP questions that they cannot answer.”

Support for Goosie Tanoh

From the Volta Region, another group calling itself the Youth Action for Development (YAD) of the NDC has called on a founder member of the party, Mr Augustus Obuadum Tanoh, known in political circles as ‘Goosie Tanoh’, to contest the flagbearership position of the party.

The group, which is made up of grass-roots members of the NDC, said their call for Mr Tanoh to lead the opposition party into the 2020 general elections was based on extensive consultations with the rank and file of some members of the NDC across the country who saw him as the best person to secure the future of the party after its humiliating electoral defeat in 2016.