Aseidu Nketiah Launches Campaign To Contest NDC Chairmanship Race
Mr. Nketiah will be in the race with the current chairman of the party, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo.
Freeman Koryekpor 
General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress NDC Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketiah popularly known as General Mosquito has finally declared his intention to contest the National Chairmanship position on the ticket of the NDC.
Addressing the supporters and members of the NDC in the atmosphere of jubilation in Accra on Tuesday October 25, 2022 Mr. Nketiah said he was the best person to occupy the chairmanship position.
Mr. Nketiah will be in the race with the current chairman of the party, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo.
The NDC will hold its national congress on December 17, 2022, to elect national executives.
He indicated that a couple of weeks ago, he made it public that he would not be contesting for the position of General Secretary of the NDC when his current tenure expires at the end of this year.
That declaration, according to him, marked the end of an era and promised the dawn of a new age for the NDC.
He stated that the declaration marked the end of an era because it meant that I would no longer be serving as General Secretary of the NDC – a position members of our dear party have done me the honour of serving for seventeen years.
"As General Secretary of the NDC, I’ve had the privilege of serving the NDC and contributing towards the building of some of its most enduring structures and systems.
"I have in that period – working together with other comrades – also overseen some of the most far-reaching reforms in the administration, organization, and practices of the party.
"Against stark odds and daunting challenges, I had the honour of steering the party from opposition into government in 2008 and getting us retained in 2012," he noted.
Mr Nketiah explained that "Even as the vicissitudes and uncertainties of politics saw us back in opposition in 2016, we have worked together, especially with my colleagues in the National Executive, to shake off that defeat and strengthened the machinery of the party for future elections and governance.
He added that "The results? We rose like the proverbial phoenix and staged a spectacular comeback only to be denied victory in both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections of 2022.
This denial, according to him was largely through a combination of raw violence by the NPP government and deliberate rigging by the Electoral Commission.
"We regained fifty-seven (57) Parliamentary seats in that election, and we maintain that we won a Parliamentary majority, which was brutally taken away from us through extra-judicial killings by thugs and assigns of the NPP led by President Akufo-Addo," he said
Below is the full Statement of Mr Nketiah
Launch of campaign for
National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress Tuesday October 25, 2022
Ladies and gentlemen of the media
I am Johnson Asiedu Nketiah: your very own courageous, fearless, trustworthy, honest, and experienced servant – otherwise known as General Mosquito.
I thank you all for honouring my humble and sincere invitation to the launch of my bid to be elected National Chairman of the National Democratic Congress; come December 2022.
A couple of weeks ago, I made it public that I would not be contesting for the position of General Secretary of our great party, the National Democratic Congress, when my current tenure expires at the end of this year.
That declaration marked the end of an era and promised the dawn of a new age for the NDC.
The declaration marked the end of an era because it meant that I would no longer be serving as General Secretary of the NDC – a position members of our dear party have done me the honour of serving for seventeen years.
As General Secretary of the NDC, I’ve had the privilege of serving the NDC and contributing towards the building of some of its most enduring structures and systems.
I have in that period – working together with other comrades – also overseen some of the most far-reaching reforms in the administration, organization, and practices of the party.
Against stark odds and daunting challenges, I had the honour of steering the party from opposition into government in 2008 and getting us retained in 2012.
Even as the vicissitudes and uncertainties of politics saw us back in opposition in 2016, we have worked together, especially with my colleagues in the National Executive, to shake off that defeat and strengthened the machinery of the party for future elections and governance.
The results? We rose like the proverbial phoenix and staged a spectacular comeback only to be denied victory in both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections of 2022.
This denial was largely through a combination of raw violence by the NPP government and deliberate rigging by the Electoral Commission.
We regained fifty-seven (57) Parliamentary seats in that election, and we maintain that we won a Parliamentary majority, which was brutally taken away from us through extra-judicial killings by thugs and assigns of the NPP led by President Akufo-Addo.
The hard work and shift we all put into the organization of the party towards the last elections has rekindled our spirits. There is every indication that come 2024, the NDC will be voted to power! Insha Allah!
The NDC will return to power in 2025 to salvage the country from the exceptionally bad governance and mismanagement of the Akufo-Addo and Bawumia government that has plunged us into daily sorrow and misery as a people.
My tenure as General Secretary of the NDC witnessed some of the best moments in my life as it afforded me an opportunity to contribute to shaping both the historical and future trajectory of the NDC and our country’s politics.
It has been a storied journey.
The journey over that period was not without its challenges but by God’s grace I was able to surmount most, if not all the obstacles that came my way.
It is a journey that I could not have navigated without the telling contributions and support of the teeming masses of our members and supporters.
It has been heartwarming, the level of support I have received in the course of my work for the party. That is why I am poised to pave the way for other vibrant young men and women to fill my shoes as I contest to be the National Chairman of the NDC.
Those to whom I am indebted to – for how far I have come – are too numerous to name individually.
But I would be greatly remiss if I failed to thank all the many party executives right from the branches, through to the constituencies up to the national level, who made my stay in the office of General Secretary worthwhile.
I owe a debt of gratitude to our late Founder, His Excellency Jerry John Rawlings, our late President His Excellency John Evans Atta Mills, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama, the late Captain Kojo Tsikata, the late Hon. J.H. Owusu Acheampong, the late Professor Kofi Awoonor, Alhaji Mahama Iddrisu and all the great men and women from whom we drew inspiration and whose sweat and toil brought this party into being.
Because of them, I had the unique opportunity to serve in this capacity.
I need also to acknowledge the late Dr. Kwabena Adjei (Wayoo Wayo!), Hon Kofi Portuphy and Hon Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, all of whom I had the privilege of working closely with during my tenure when they also served as National Chairmen of the NDC.
I cannot end these acknowledgements without mentioning the other real architects of my General Secretaryship bid some seventeen years ago.
These were my colleagues in parliament who saw that I had a contribution to make at that critical moment in the party’s history. They are Rt. Hon. Edward Doe Adjaho, Rt. Hon A. S. K. Bagbin, and HE Dan Abodakpi.
I would be leaving the position gratified at the many successes that we chalked together as a party. While I served as your General Secretary, many improvements were brought to the running of the party and many milestones were reached.
It would be impossible to recount all the gains we made over the years but permit me to recall a few that stand out.
• Under my stewardship as the Chief Scribe, we won the watershed 2008 elections and campaigned vigorously together with President John Dramani Mahama over just 4 months to retain power in 2012 after the untimely demise of President Atta Mills.
• When the NPP led by Nana Akufo-Addo mischievously challenged our 2012 Presidential victory at the Supreme Court; in a deliberate attempt to unseat President John Dramani Mahama; I – courageously and fearlessly – mounted the witness box. Together with lawyers Tsatsu Tsikata and Tony Lithur, we made nonsense of Dr. Bawumia and the NPP’s fake evidence, which they submitted to support their case and won victory for the NDC.
•The NDC acquired an ultra-modern Head Office, the first of its kind in Ghana and which is equipped to make efficient administration of the party possible.
The Head Office has a modern conference facility and a well-stocked Library accessible to both members of the party and the public.
Let me thank President Atta Mills, then Vice President Mahama and all the key people who worked to put up the building.
•We stablished the Institute of Social Democracy to deepen knowledge about our ideology and world view among members and the larger Ghanaian public.
•We ensured greater democratic decision-making in the party by expanding the National Executive Committee to include the Youth and Women Organisers.
•Our electoral college system has been expanded to make it the largest in Ghana now.
•We introduced an electronic membership registration drive to allow more efficient data collection and information. This helps us with good knowledge of our membership, their skills set and distribution across the country and abroad.
•We injected more transparency and accountability into the financial administration of the party through the introduction of electronic dues collection and other payment systems.
•We compiled and published the historical record of the NDC into one body of work readily available to party members and the public.
•In my capacity as General Secretary and as a unifier, I led negotiations with a breakaway party (the Democratic Freedom Party) led by Dr Obed Asamoah, which led to its merger with the NDC.
•We projected the NDC internationally and forged closer ties with like-minded progressive parties across the globe. As a result, the NDC has the distinction of holding the Vice-Presidential position of Socialist International. The Socialist International is the leading international grouping of Progressive Parties.
•We also established the Professional Forum, the NDC Lawyers Association and Progressive Intellectuals to give solid intellectual and legal inputs into the policies and programmes of the Party.
•We have made the NDC a more youth-oriented organization by affording many young people the opportunity to participate in international conferences and training programmes including scholarships to study medicine and other disciplines abroad.
The foregoing constitutes only a small fraction of what we have achieved in my time as General Secretary.
As all good things come to an end, my stay as the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress is in its twilight phase. And as this time fast approached, it became necessary to carry out honest self-assessment and introspection.
I had a choice between calling time on my political career and walking into the sunset “to support from behind” or charting a new path.
I find that despite our best and collective efforts as a party, a lot more remains to be done to finally achieve the level of efficiency and effectiveness we desire as a party and ensure total victory in the 2024 elections and beyond.
Despite the years of hard work, we have put into building this party, our collective vision to build the strongest, most fearless, most courageous, most formidable, most electable, and viable political organization in Ghana and Africa remains work in progress.
That means we must put in even more work than before and to do this, we need to have a fine blend of experienced, fearless, trustworthy, and innovative thinking at the helm of the party.
With courage and tact, there is no way the NDC would have been defeated in the Ayawaso West Wuogon Constituency bye elections.
That defeat emboldened the NPP to rollout a mega diabolical plan, which claimed the lives of eight of our compatriots.
May their souls rest in perfect peace. I promise, under my Chairmanship, we shall win 2024.
Let the NPP bring it on!
And when we win, we shall ensure justice is done. The dead deserves justice and so are their grieving family members yearning for justice.
I am a firm believer in the truism that organizations must reinvent and rejuvenate themselves from time to time and as the NDC abounds in talents, my exit from the General Secretary slot will usher in a new dispensation that allows the injection of a new face with new ideas.
I also do know that the complexities of Ghana’s political terrain and our immediate and long term objectives as a party require that new ideas receive experienced complementation to hit the desired target.
But it must be the right kind of experience, honed through years of principled consistency and committed service to the cause and ideals of the NDC.
After lengthy consideration, deliberation and consultations with my family, friends, and many within our party, I have taken the humble view that the vast experience I have gained as General Secretary should be placed at the disposal of the party in a different capacity. I have therefore decided to run for the position of National Chairman of the NDC in the upcoming National Executive elections, slated for December 2022.
I have not taken this decision lightly. I have weighed all the possible scenarios and concluded that the experiences garnered over the years will prove very useful in our forward march as a party.
The order of business before us both in the immediate and distant future, which includes dislodging the obnoxious NPP government led by Akufo-Addo and halting the precipitous collapse of our country, means that we need to marshal our very best arsenal.
Together with the soon to be elected new General Secretary and other National Executives, we can position this party to realize its ambitions and prospects as the go-to umbrella body of all progressives in Ghana and on whose time-tested principles our country’s future rests.
I come to this contest with a clear mind on what needs to be done going forward and how to build on the gains of the past and present.
There is a whole raft of reforms that I would like to see implemented under my Chairmanship and in conjunction with all stakeholders. These, I believe will further strengthen the NDC and make it even more viable.
The following will be some of the proposals and policy positions I would be bringing on board for consideration as Chairman.
•It is true that I have been the longest-serving General Secretary of any political party in Ghana, but it is my view that organizations need to grow and evolve as they do so.
I think the time has come to consider the introduction of term limits for office holders in the NDC as this will help encourage participation of young people at the highest levels of the party and make office holders more accountable.
• I would also propose a decentralized National Conference and Congress to elect party executives and flagbearers. I would propose that they are, as a first step, held at the regional level and then after testing the outcomes, held at Constituency level.
The direct benefit of this is cutting down the astronomical cost of holding large National Congresses with thousands of participants and the associated risks of travelling from far and near for such conferences.
Special and well-structured party conferences devoid of campaigning can then be held subsequently to discuss party constitutional and policy matters as well as matters of national importance.
• For many years, we have all known that the current mode of selection of party executives and candidates at all levels is too costly and unsustainable and has implications for governance.
For a mass-based organization like the NDC, there is an undeniable need for much broader participation by as many members of the party as possible at the least possible cost.
We cannot perpetually encourage the unsustainable expenditure associated with vying for positions in the party. It is for this reason that we attempted universal suffrage in the 2015 primaries.
Despite varying degrees of success and challenges during that attempt, it remains the best way to curb monetization and restricted participation in party primaries and I will be tabling it for consideration as Chairman of the party.
• We will deepen mass registration of party members with the view to achieving continuous registration and ultimately building a fully integrated data base for more efficient management.
This will help eliminate disputes about memberships and reduce opportunity for manipulation of registers for electoral purposes. It will enhance dues collection and other funding avenues.
• I will champion, as Chairman of the NDC, the provision of a permanent campus for the Institute of Social Democracy to make it a fully-fledged institution of political and ideological learning with accreditation and open access to social democratic parties, institutions, labour union leaders and personnel of CSOs in and outside of Ghana.
• The party school will run programmes for all office holders in the NDC and bring them up to speed with their responsibilities.
• I will collaborate with my successor General Secretary to continue with the Financial Reforms we are currently implementing to give the branches, constituency and regional wings of the party, greater financial autonomy, and independence with strict financial and accounting lines to ensure maximum transparency in the collection and utilization of funds.
• We will revive the NDC Heroes Fund to serve as sustainable means of supporting party functionaries, who suffer disabilities in the course of their duties or their dependents in the event of death.
• In short, I will lead my colleagues as your chairman to make the NDC a formidable, attractive, and modern organization that will be the party of choice for the teeming masses of Ghanaians, the youth, women, the vulnerable in society and people from all walks of life and background.
The NDC will be the reference point for effective social mobilization to unleash the potential of the Ghanaian to achieve any feat and realize our collective aspirations.
3y3 Zu!
3y3 Za!
Fellow Akatamansonians
Ladies and gentlemen
Ultimately, my Chairmanship will result in a resounding victory for the NDC in the 2024 elections. That would not only be a political success for the NDC, but it is also in fact, a national emergency and imperative.
On the evidence of the kind of governance we have seen in the last six years, failure to wrest the leadership of our dear country from the NPP will spell doom for Ghanaians as they would have been condemned to more bad governance and total maladministration.
The people of this country have no tolerance left for the horrendous misrule of Akufo-Addo and his nation-wrecking NPP government. Ghanaians can no longer tolerate the insults being heaped on them by Akufo-Addo himself and his close associates. Ghanaians are fed up!
Ghanaians look forward to the NDC to fearlessly save what is left of our country and restore it to its glorious days.
For all their mismanagement and terrible governance, all of us know that the NPP is prepared to kill for power as they demonstrated in the Ayawaso West Wuogon attacks and the callous murder of eight innocent souls during the 2020 elections.
In their arsenal is a deeply partisan Electoral Commission that believes their singular duty is to rig elections for the NPP and emasculate other parties.
The NDC must, therefore, be properly organized and have a leadership that exhibits untainted integrity, fearlessness, trustworthiness, proven temperament, selflessness, discipline, accountability, transparency, and emotional intelligence.
Above all, we need a leadership that has the moral courage to stand up to a marauding NPP in the 2024 elections.
The NDC needs a Chairman who is not amenable to any influence, inducement, or compromise by external forces.
It is these qualities that I humbly bring to the table in this contest for the Chairmanship position of the party.
I pledge that mine will be a decent campaign focused on issues devoid of any personal and needless attacks.
This, after all, is an internal contest, which should leave us more united than divided and I extend a hand of friendship to all aspirants in this contest to do same so that in the end, we will surge forward together to remove the failed NPP government from office.
Once again, I am Johnson Asiedu Nketiah: your very own courageous, fearless, trustworthy, honest, and experienced servant – General Mosquito.
Vote for me as the National Chairman of the NDC come December 2022.
I thank you all for coming
Long live the NDC and may God bless our homeland Ghana.
