Mahama’s inaugural ceremony: Kufuor to attend despite party’s decision
Former President John Kufuor will attend the inaugural ceremony of President John Mahama on Monday, January 7, 2013.
The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) National Executive Council on Wednesday yesterday announced the party will not participate in the ceremony and cautioned supporters against attending saying showing up will undermine its case in court challenging the election results.
However a statement from the office of the former President Kufuor said he will attend the ceremony in his capacity as the former President of the country.
His spokesperson, Frank Agyekum told Citi News, Mr. Kufuor’s position as a former President means that he is above party politics.
“He is not going as a party member per say but the edict of the party was for all party members not to go so those who have received invitation in their capacity as party members such as Chairman, Obetsebi Lamptey who might have received one in his capacity as the party Chairman and Sir John who has received one in his capacity as a General Secretary wouldn’t honor those invitations because that is the edict of the party.”
He noted that ex-President Kufuor is in a special category and his attendance of the inaugural ceremony has been conveyed to the leadership of the party who agreed that he should go.
Meanwhile, some members of the NPP Youth Wing have besieged the residence of the former President vowing to prevent him from attending the inauguration ceremony.
One of the youth leaders, Hopson Adoye told Citi News, they will do everything possible to prevent the former President from attending what he described as an illegal ceremony.
“We don’t want him involved in this illegality because we describe this inauguration as an illegal inauguration so we will not allow him to go looking at his stature, where he has risen to, we will not allow that to happen.”
Explaining their stance on the matter, Mr. Adoye stated that “a decision to go to court was taken by the National Council which President Kufuor was part of it. So why should we allow ourselves to be used by the NDC? They were just trying to persuade him, ‘we are looking up to you to bring peace to the system….all these are fallacies so we don’t agree to that.”
“We are here to present our petition to him, we are here to tell him that we don’t agree so if he still continues to go, we are not going to allow that and we will make sure to put him under house arrest. By 3 am, all party members will be here and we will not allow him to go out,” he threatened.
The General Secretary of the party, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie however denied knowledge of any such plans by some members of the party.
“If somebody wants to take a decision that does not sit well with some people and they think that the best way is to try to reason with their father and elder of our party, I don’t think that anybody can stop that….His Excellency Kufuor is an adult, he’s a very able statesman and I believe that he will take a lot of factors into consideration.”
Source: Citifmonline
