Stop the cheap politics - NDC UK/Ireland Chairman

Chairman of UK and Ireland branch of the National Democratic Congress, (NDC), Horace Nii Aryee Ankrah has taken a swipe at people he says are fanning unnecessarily, the internal wrangling in the party for their parochial interests. He says it is highly unacceptable for party functionaries and members who belong to the hierarchy of the party to reduce themselves to what he called the practice of cheap politics which will not augur well for party unity. Nii Ankrah was talking in an interview with ADOM FM’s DWASO NSEM host, Adakabre Frimpong Manso on Wednesday, on the purported name-calling against President Mills, by a Vice Chairman of the NDC Dr Ekwow Spio-Gabrah at a seminar with some youth of the NDC. Dr Spio-Gabrah is reported to have said in the meeting with the NDC’s Tertiary Education Institution Network (TEIN), Grater Accra region branch, on Tuesday, that the president ought to take steps to address the gaping cracks within the party. He cited, among others, the failure of the government to provide a befitting accommodation for former President Jerry Rawlings and his family after their Ridge residence was razed on February 14, 2010. The comments have since incurred the wrath of the functional executives, causing the party to subsequently issue a press statement condemning his comments and those of one Dela Coffie, said to be the communication director of a group - Friends of Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings. While expressing his disappointment with the turn of events in the ruling NDC, the UK/Ireland NDC Chairman said the development of name-calling is unacceptable and must be stopped forthwith. He noted that it is cheap politics that will make anybody use a given platform to cast insinuations at others, to the extent of describing a sitting president as "wicked" and "insensitive" - a phenomenon he vehemently criticized and said must stop. Nii Ankrah said he finds it preposterous for anybody to use the predicament of the people of Haiti and the assistance given them by President Mills and compare it to the lack of accommodation for ex-President Rawlings and based on that point accusing fingers at the President. Concurring with calls to provide ex-President Rawlings a decent accommodation in keeping with constitutional provisions, he expressed the belief that on humanitarian grounds, even Rawlings could have given any possible assistance to the Haitians, hence his call for people using the “cheap politics for their parochial interests” to desist from it. “Some of us are getting fed up and certain things are just unacceptable which must be condemned and discontinued” he added, intimating also that all members of the NDC must unite and end the in-fighting in the party for their own good. The NDC, he said, ought to stop the in-fighting while those who are bent on making capital of President Mills and ex-President Rawlings' relations for their personal ambitions should put a stop to their activities to destroy the NDC. Source: Adom FM/Ghana