NPP to NDC: Attack on Bryan Acheampong hypocritical, illogical, and baseless

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has described as ill- founded, hypocritical, illogical, and baseless, a recent statement issued by the General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Fiifi Kwetey, demanding the arrest of Bryan Acheampong, Member of Parliament for the Abetifi Constituency and Minister for Food and Agriculture.

The NDC’s statement was issued on the back of a comment made by Bryan Acheampong while addressing NPP supporters at Mpraeso in the Eastern Region on Saturday at the end of the NPP’s “Arise and Build Unity Walk” as part of activities marking this year’s Kwahu Easter.

Acheampong noted that the NDC will collapse without a campaign message before the next election and that the NPP was not going to lie idle for political power to slip out of its hands.

“Due to the challenges encountered by the economy in recent times, the opposition NDC think they will win power. But the government has instituted measures to salvage the situation with impact already showing in the reduction in fuel prices and appreciation of the Ghana cedi against the major foreign currencies,” Mr Acheampong said.

“The NDC was thinking that the election will be held in a period when the economy would be entangled in difficulties, but the government will fix the challenges before that. I promise that by June/July this year the government will be able to secure a deal from the IMF to help drive the economy out of its current economic challenges and this will subsequently collapse the NDC,” he added.

NDC on Bryan Acheampong

However, the NDC in a statement, condemned Bryan Acheampong’s comment describing it as “utterly reckless and a treasonable comment in no uncertain terms”.

“We note that Bryan Acheampong is the latest of high-ranking officials of the NPP to make such brazen statements that reveal the party’s deep-seated determination to subvert Ghana’s democratic order. We urge the Ghana Police Service to act with dispatch in this matter.

“We recall the alacrity with which it recently apprehended and charged the Suame Constituency Youth Organiser of the NDC for expressing views that were deemed to be inciteful. No one is in any doubt that the statement of Bryan Acheampong is even more incendiary and subversive.

“We therefore expect the same level of speedy action from the Ghana Police Service in arresting Bryan Acheampong and bringing him to book,” the NDC statement read.

NPP’s reaction

In their reaction, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in a statement dated 10 April 2023, and signed by the party’s General Secretary, Justin Kodua Frimpong, note that the party “has sighted a flippant statement signed by the General Secretary of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), on comments made by Bryan Acheampong, Member of Parliament for the Abetifi Constituency and Minister for Food and Agriculture while addressing some party supporters in the Eastern Region, which the NDC describes as treasonable”.

“The NPP finds the NDC’s statement not only ill- founded, hypocritical, illogical, and baseless, but also one that lacks contextual substance for the consumption of the discerning Ghanaians who are not oblivious to the modus operandi of the main opposition party in deliberately putting diabolic and mischievous slant to an otherwise innocuous comment of the Member of Parliament in furtherance of their selfish political interest.

“Since the NDC pretends not to appreciate and logically decode Bryan’s message, we would once again educate them, just as we have done on many occasions. For the avoidance of doubt, Hon Bryan Acheampong, was responding to the NDC’s ‘perpetual flagbearer’, John Dramani Mahama, who had on many occasions described the 2024 general elections as one of “do or die” for the NDC,” the NPP statement read.

The NPP statement further indicated; “It is, in fact, a known secret that the NDC has always resorted to violence and intimidation against their opponents during the conduct of general elections, and this was summed up by their 2024 presumptive presidential candidate, John Dramani Mahama. He has stated emphatically that:

“NDC has revolutionary root, and that when it comes to unleashing violence, nobody can beat us [NDC] in unleashing violence”.

“Other leading members of the NDC, including Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, the National Chairman of the Party, have made similar threatening and malicious comments. Indeed, following his election as National Chairman, Asiedu Nketiah stated in his victory speech that the NDC would fight the 2024 general elections to win a second independence for Ghana, and that, they are prepared to sacrifice everything including their lives for an NDC victory”.

“In was in response to these myriad of reckless and treasonable comments from the NDC that Hon. Bryan Acheampong gave encouragement to supporters of the NPP, who may feel intimated by the many threats coming from the NDC, that, under no circumstance should they feel intimated because the NPP has men of courage who can rise to the defense of our democracy and the 1992 Constitution of the Republic as enshrined in Article 3 of the Constitution,” the NPP General Secretary said in his statement.

“Hon. Bryan, thereupon, proceeded to give NPP supporters a firm assurance that the Party [NPP] will not lose the 2024 general elections and hand power to the NDC but will do everything to retain power. Considering the steps being taken by the Akufo-Addo-led government to tackling Ghana’s socio-economic challenges, which have begun bearing positive dividends, and also by the conduct of the NPP since the advent of the Fourth Republic, Bryan Acheampong’s comment can only be interpreted to mean that the NPP, just as it has done in the past, is determined to do everything legally possible to win the 2024 general elections. The NPP’s track record of winning elections through free, fair, and transparent means is not in doubt at all.

“It is thus nerve-wracking to see the very persons who have over time made the worst of unguarded statements, and acted in a manner that has the potential to subvert the nation’s democratic order and plunge the country into chaos and instability, turn around and cry foul of a statement that seeks to energize the base of the NPP, give assurance of hope to party faithfuls and the Ghanaian citizenry.

“Ghanaians are fully awoken to such gimmicks by the NDC. The NPP considers the NDC’s attack on Bryan Acheampong not only unwarranted but also attention-seeking with an ill attempt to emotionally blackmail Ghanaians to court their support,” the NPP statement further read.