About 48 NDC Members of Parliament have signed a petition to the national executives of the party to reverse a decision to change the Minority leadership in the House.
Some of the MPs felt slighted by the party’s failure to consult the parliamentary caucus before shaking up their leadership.
The party has replaced Haruna Iddrisu as the Minority Leader with Dr Cassiel Ato Forson. It also named Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah and Kwame Agbodza as the new Deputy Minority Leader and Chief Whip respectively.
But the Members of Parliament who have expressed their disapproval said the decision is unpopular and must be reversed.
One of these vocal MPs is the MP for Tamale Central, Murtala Mohammed who questioned the move and said the party is “only taking away the most experienced leaders and bringing the less experienced ones. Nobody told them we are dissatisfied with the leadership.”
TV3’s Parliamentary Correspondent Komla Klutse said on Wednesday, January 25 that the decision has brought great upheavals among NDC legislators.
Meanwhile, the outgoing Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed-Mubarak Muntaka, is convening an emergency caucus meeting on Thursday, January 26 to address the development.
It is however not clear if the National Chairman Asiedu Nketiah and the General Secretary Fifi Kwetey who led the reshuffling exercise will be attending the meeting.
On Tuesday, Fifi Kwetey who is a former Member of Parliament himself gave the strongest indication yet that the party leadership would not reverse the decision.
He said the party will proceed with the leadership changes when Parliament resumes in February.
“The leadership of the party at the highest level has taken a decision and that is just what it is. You cannot set up a precedent where decisions by the leadership of the party are now going to be an issue of the caucus. The leadership of the party in Parliament is appointed by the leadership of the party. It is not something that is done by the caucus of the party,” he told Accra-based Citi FM.
National Chairman of the party, Asiedu Nketiah has been explaining the executives’ decision citing regional balance and economic issues ahead of the 2024 general elections.
“We know for instance that going into election 2024, the economy is going to be the major battle ground and so many of the debates will focus on the economy. So you better put your best man in economy forward that is what we have done.
“We also looked at energy. You know the petroleum and electricity challenges, so we needed to settle on Kofi Armah Buah, our former minister to be the Deputy Minority Leader
“The other area is infrastructure , Kwame Agbodza being our man in infrastructure should play a key role that generally is what informed the changes” he added.
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