Let us persuade all defectors to return to NDC – Bagbin

Mr Alban S. K. Bagbin, Minority Leader in Parliament on Saturday called on activists, supporters and sympathisers of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to persuade those who had defected from the party to return. "We need everybody back in the NDC. It is our home," he stated. Mr Bagbin made the call at the inauguration of the Volta Regional branch of the Youth and Women's Wing Working Committees of the party in Ho. He said “Although people with conscience would not leave the NDC for any political party, it is important that people who did not know their fate and were thinking of leaving or had left were spoken to about how suicidal it is to leave a ‘matured’ party.” Mr Bagbin noted that integrity and good leadership kept the PNDC/NDC in power for 19 years therefore; the NDC remained the only party that would put nation first than any political party. He alleged that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Government would not leave any better legacy for the youth as it tended to disrupt democratic principles and lacked respect for human rights and rule of law. "All they do is to use indigenous tactics to make Parliament ineffective, they dismissed experienced technocrats and employed untrained party activists," he added. Mr Bagbin called on civil society organisations to wake up and support institutions of governance to hold government accountable. Mr Haruna Iddrisu, NDC National Youth Organiser, who inaugurated the committees, advised the members not to be complacent but work hard to enable the party win the 2008 elections. He advised them to share vital information that would bring the party back to power rather than act as agents of any presidential aspirant of the party. Mr Iddrisu noted that the 2008 elections would not be contested on events of the past but on the present and future prosperity of the country. He said Dr Richard Winfred Anane, Minister of Transportation, remained a "litmus test" to President John Agyekum Kuffuor’s declaration of zero tolerance on corruption. Mr Iddrisu said the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) should have been bold to recommend the prosecution of Dr Anane.