NDC national officers rushed with Minority leadership shake-up – Mahama Ayariga

The Member of Parliament for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga, has taken a swipe at the national executives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), saying they rushed to announce changes in the Minority leadership.

The NDC earlier this week reshuffled its leadership in Parliament replacing Minority Leader Haruna Iddrisu with Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson.

Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, MP for Ellembelle also replaced Ketu North MP, James Klutse Avedzi as the Deputy Minority Leader while Kwame Governs Agbodza replaced Asawase MP, Muntaka Mubarak as the Minority Chief Whip.

Mr. Ayariga together with some other MPs signed a petition to reject the decision of the party.

Another set of MPs also petitioned the leadership of the NDC to ignore calls for the reshuffling to be reversed.

The National Chairman and the General Secretary granted media interviews confirming the reshuffle when news was rife.

But speaking on the The Big Issue on Citi TV/Citi FM, Mr. Ayariga described the move by the national executives as ‘wrong’, asking why the executives engaged in media interviews when some of the Minority caucus were not aware of the changes.

He said the national executives faulted by publicly announcing the changes without proper consultations with the MPs and the outgoing Minority leadership.

“I also feel that our leaders who have done this [change], thus the National Chairman and the General Secretary should have spoken to us first. Those who jumped the steps on TV and radio etc, some of us have our reservations about that conduct. I also have reservations about our National Chairman also going on that tangent”.

“I believe that our National Chairman should have spoken to us first. I don’t believe that the first of action was to speak to the country. The sequencing of the communication was wrong. Some of us are not happy about the way our new leaders conducted themselves, which is to speak to the media first, before speaking to the people that they are going to lead. Those who went to the media to protest too are wrong. Ato Forson talking in the media was a wrong move,” the MP said on The Big Issue.

The legislator believes that the outgoing Minority leadership was treated unfairly, adding that some of them received the news under a very embarrassing circumstance.

“The grievances of some of our MPs is that, some of our colleagues got to know about the removal under very embarrassing circumstances. Take Avedzi for instance, I’m told he was at a conference in Southern Africa and in the middle of the presentation he received a message, that he’s no longer the deputy leader. The communication and how it went is an issue for some of the MPs and not because they are against the decision but how it went,” Mr. Ayariga said.

The disappointed lawmaker opined that the political careers of Haruna Iddrisu and Muntaka shouldn’t be toyed with adding that they should have been communicated through a proper channel.

“We are dealing with human beings and careers. How will people perceive our Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu and our Chief Whip, Muntaka. Mubarak? These are people we have worked with, in my case more than a decade. And to wake up one early morning to hear that they have been removed, I will be sympathetic,” he explained.

The MP for Bawku admitted that the reshuffle was not managed well by both the national executives and the petitioners.

“Yes it has happened but after that, we are all not managing it well. Those of us challenging it, I don’t believe that press conferences and others are the proper forum for challenging your party because party discipline and cohesiveness is important. Both the petitioners and national executives faulted,” he admitted.