NDC TO EXHUME JUSTIN KODUA’S ‘SKELETONS’ AT YEA

Even before he could settle down as the newly-elected General Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP)at the party’s just-ended Annual Delegates’ Conference held last Saturday July 16, elements in the opposition are up in arms to soil his image.

The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has hinted, it will,in the coming days, drop some alleged scandals involvingMrJustin Frimpong Kodua, who until recently was the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Youth Employment Agency (YEA).

According to the NDC, it is aware of the mess the 39-year-old lawyer allegedly superintended while serving as the Agency’s boss,serving notice that the new NPP scribe, affectionatelycalled JFK,will not be allowed to pack out freely without being exposed.

Though Member of Parliament (MP) for the Tamale Central,Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, who dropped the clue did not mention the nature of scandal his party has againstMrKodua; he describes it as mindboggling.

Speaking on TV3’s New Day programme on Tuesday July 19, after the NPP Delegates Conference at the Accra Sports Stadium, Ibrahim Murtala said, the NDC knows MrKodua is not leaving YEA on a good note.

The MP who also served as a Deputy boss of the then National Youth Employment Programme later turned Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Development Agency (GYEEDA) under late President Atta Mills, said what the NDC knows as far as Mr. Kodua and the YEA areconcerned, is “mindboggling”.

He told programme host, Johnny Hughes, Ghanaians would be shocked to learn the level of rot the NDC has gathered from YEA. Without delving much into the alleged ‘mess’, the outspoken lawmaker assured that in due course, the said ‘mess’ would be made public.

“Another gentleman who was elected as [General] Secretary, I think that the days ahead will be interesting. We know what he supervised at the YEA; we know and it is mindboggling. The people of this country, will be shocked the kinds of things we will bring out as far as I am concerned we know”.

Murtala, who was on the show with Spokesperson for the newly-elected national chairman of the NPP, Stephen Ayesu Ntim, Kamaldeen Abdulai, said even though he wishes the new executives well, he argued that they cannot do much for the ‘Break the 8’ campaign of the NPP.

In the view of the MP, the government is on its way to opposition due to the way and manner it has performed, bringing untold hardship on to Ghanaians. He posited that the government of President Akufo-Addo is already destroyed and so no amount of efforts can retain it.

“So clearly the caliber of people they have elected frankly, I congratulate everybody but I don’t think that they can change the time.

The rotting of the fish starts from the head, if the head is rotten, no matter how much you garnish the other parts of the body with spices, it is still rotten. You see, it is the entire system”, he said.

On the party’s ‘Break the 8’ campaign, the MP said as far as he was concerned, there is nothing to be broken. He criticized the President for not embracing the winners of the election wholeheartedly.

“And clearly, I don’t know whether the President didn’t like the people who won because he didn’t have the courage to just pretentiously put a smile, he frowned his face throughout after the declaration of the results.

I also know that some of them won because they think that they must go on with the agenda of breaking the so called 8, I mean I don’t think there is even any 8 to break”, he said.

He also downplayed the assertion that Mr. Ntim will perform because he spent over 20 years to clinch the chairmanship position. According to him, waiting for that long before chairing the NPP meant nothing because the same thing was said about President Akufo-Addo but his performance has been disastrous.

But Kamaldeen who is also a deputy communication director of the NPP disagreed vehemently with Murtala’s position.

Earlier, he underscored the fact that there was no loser in the election which saw a total of 10 positions battled for by various aspirants.

He said as far as he was concerned, it was the NPP that won at the end of the conference and so urged all hands on deck for the task ahead which includes the organizations of two primaries parliamentary and presidential.

“The NPP won; no one won. The NPP won in the sense that, we have work to do we need to get back, there will be appointments done and after the appointments there will be committees. There will be National Council constituted, there will be NEC constituted and of course, we are going to have work to do.

We have ahead of us also, the primaries that is the presidential primary and also the parliamentary primary. Conference never broke us, it brought us together.

He described the national chairman as a unifier who is going to bring everyone on board for the task ahead.

“ I can tell you that it ended well we don’t have who won or who lost; we have NPP as we sit right now and fortunately for us, the man we have elected as national chairman is indeed a unifier. He is indeed going to handle the affairs of this country”, he added.

Source: Anchorghana