The tagging of former President Mahama as incompetent by Joseph Bipoba Naabu, MP for Yunyoo, was “not proper” as the lawmaker failed to use the “right channels” within his party to address his grievances, Kumbungu MP Ras Mubarak has said, noting, however, that the conduct of Mr Naabu was not surprising, being “clearly consistent with his attitude” of working against the interests of his own party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Mr Naabu, speaking in an interview with Class 91.3FM’s parliamentary correspondent, Ekow Annan, on Tuesday 21 March, had said Mr Mahama would perform poorly in the 2020 elections if he decided to run for president again.
He said: “Even though it’s my party and I wish that we would have won the elections, it was because of our behaviour, and the president himself took things for granted, that was why we lost. He thought he was going to win hands down but rather he lost heavily and massively. I will say lack of competence and he also not having control, people were just telling him lies within the presidency.
“Take Omane Boamah for instance. What experience has he got in politics? If he goes to contest elections in the constituency where he comes from, can he win that election? But the former president was listening to such people and that is the problem with him. Those who were surrounding him were not telling him the truth.
“He was the president and he went and contested with Nana Akufo-Addo and lost so miserably… Now, if President Mahama comes, what is he going to do? Is he the only person and why should it be him? I want to tell him categorically that if he comes, he will rather mess up more. And those people calling for him to come back were the people he appointed as ministers, people he made deputy ministers, they were the people who were chief executive officers of government institutions – they are the people calling him to come back.”
But Mr Mubarak, responding to the comments of his colleague legislator, told Nana Ama Agyarko on Accra News on Tuesday March 21 that Mr Naabu had a history of going against party norms.
He recalled Mr Naabu contesting as an independent candidate in 2004, having been defeated in the NDC’s primaries, adding that although the NDC’s candidate went ahead to win the main legislative election that year, Mr Naabu’s involvement in the race reduced the NDC’s share of votes – conduct he repeated in the 2008 elections where he was again unsuccessful.
“So, clearly, he is someone who has taken some actions in the past that have not been in the best interest of the party, otherwise if you were a true party member and you lost a primary in 2004, the thing you needed to do was to join the person who won and campaign for the candidate. But he didn’t do that; he went independent and split the votes,” Mr Mubarak stated.
The MP further questioned the rationale to openly criticise Mr Mahama when Mr Naabu could have made his concerns known to the Kwesi Botchwey committee probing the causes of the NDC defeat in last year’s election.
Source: Ghana/AccraFM.com
