Aseidu Nketiah VRS Haruna Iddrisu_tell Him the correct role of a party chairman of a governing party

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]So, if you want to ask me, the question is what is the role of a party chairman when the party is in government? The role of a party chairman when a party is in government is a lobbyist role. You lobby. You lobby for yourself if you want. You lobby for people. You lobby for contractors because you have influence. In Fante, I think they call it Simpa Payin. You you are an elder.

[00:00:22]You don't have real power, but you are an elder that people respect. So, you walk into Jubilee House at 11:00 in the morning. Everybody will be saluting you.

[00:00:29]Party chairman Party chairman, what are you looking for? I want to see the old man. You climb upstairs to the fourth floor. The old man's secretary sees you.

[00:00:35]Oh, party chairman is here. You go to president. Oh, a party chairman is here to see you. President will say, "Oh, let him come, of course." You go to see president. You are going to lobby.

[00:00:43]So, you go and say, "Ah, Mr. President, this contractor who really helped us, they are not paying him. Can you tell your people to pay him? You know, the guy that rally we did in Tamale, he's the one who paid for everything. He's the one who brought the lights to the rally in Obuasi. Please, see you know, sort him out." And then the president might say, "Okay, okay.

[00:00:59]Party chairman has spoken." He'll call Minister of Finance. "Ato, do you know this contractor X? Why are we not paying him?" He says, "Oh, we'll pay next week." He says, "Oh, look, party chairman has come to speak about it." So, then you go to Communication Minister. He says, "Ah, Communication Minister, our party offices don't have computers. Can you get us iMac, the latest iMac 2020? Get us about 70 or so." The Communication Minister can call a contractor who is doing business with the Ministry of Communication and beg him that, "Look, you are doing business with us. You're going to make a lot of money. Can you spend some of your profit to buy computers for my party people?

[00:01:29]Party chairman is on my neck." That's the role of a party chairman in government. That's how it is. So, Asiedu Nketiah is inexperienced. He has misunderstood the role of a party chairman in government. And so, he thinks that he's still the party chairman in opposition, making decisions, towering above the flagbearer, deciding who comes to parliament and who doesn't leave parliament, making all of those changes.

[00:01:49]That time is gone. He's completely inexperienced. He doesn't understand it.

[00:01:53]And that's the problem he's having. And he's going to have a major problem if he doesn't recoil and become a lobbyist in as a chairman of the party in government because nobody's going to pander to you.

[00:02:04]You have less influence. You have less money. You have less power. Who's going to talk to you? That's the problem. As you can see, he's inexperienced.

[00:02:12]Very, very inexperienced in handling party chairman of a party in government.

[00:02:18]Now, the other thing that is disturbing for Asiedu Nketia is that in this fourth republic there's been only one candidate who has wanted to be presidential candidate who has been on the opposite side of the Jubilee House or the castle and has won.

[00:02:36]Often, the castle wins who they want to become presidential candidate. That's been the story globally. Whoever they want to be the next candidate, he wins.

[00:02:45]If you go to the famous story of England in the '90s when they pushed Margaret Thatcher out, Margaret Thatcher didn't want um Margaret Thatcher didn't want Michael Heseltine. They Everybody wanted Heseltine. Margaret Thatcher wanted John Major. John Major became the prime minister. That's how it works. It's only Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo who in 2007 was able to fight off a very major uphill task from the castle against Kufuor and Alan Kyerematen and he won.

[00:03:11]But if you look at the victory he won, it was short of a second round. But but Akufo-Addo was that powerful. His mobilization skills were so strong. And Akufo-Addo had been a national organizer of the party. So, that's was a really different kettle of fish. And he had a lot of support. So, he's the only one in the fourth republic and perhaps in long history who has been able to achieve that. If the president doesn't want you to succeed him, half the time, 70% 85% of the time, you will not succeed him.

[00:03:39]Asiedu Nketia must get that very clear.

[00:03:41]So, if you want to be presidential candidate of a party the first vote you have to win is the vote of the sitting president. If you can't get the vote of the sitting president, my brother, forget about it. You're not going anywhere. You can be the biggest of anything. You have to be an Akufo-Addo to be able to ignore the vote of the sitting president and still win.

[00:04:02]And it was that Akufo-Addo episode that now changed constitutions of political parties in Ghana where more than 2,000 people are voting for the presidential candidate because they're trying to reduce the influence of presidents, but it hasn't been reduced. Akufo-Addo stood for Bawumia and he won it. The other thing we have to talk about is this before we get to the videos.

[00:04:21]When you look at the political trajectory, to be party chairman is a different path from being presidential candidate.

[00:04:29]Asiedu Nketia must get that very clear.

[00:04:32]So, it's like a road, okay? You are or a train that is one way and then branches out into two ways. That's how the political journey is. We all start at the same place and then you branch out into executive government or you branch out into party. So, you look at the likes of B.J. da Rocha from 1992. Da Rocha doesn't want to be presidential candidate, no way. He could have if he wanted to contest in 1992 as a flag bearer to challenge the incumbent.

[00:04:58]Da Rocha would have been formidable, but he doesn't like that because we're all different. He doesn't want to be presidential candidate or president of the country. He wants to run the party, so he wants to be party chairman.

[00:05:10]Odoi Sykes, Peter Ala Adjetey, all these people, A.A. Munufie, Alhaji Issifu Ali, Kobina Dj they don't want to be presidential candidate at all. They just don't want to be. So, they go the path of the path of the of the of the party. So, if you go the path of the party, you cannot then come around and say that now you want to be presidential candidate. You can't do that. So, look at NPP today.

[00:05:36]You see the likes of Sammy Awuku and then these guys. Sammy Awuku started as the party as Akufo-Addo was national organizer, but Sammy Awuku started as the party. Sammy Awuku has decided that he wants to cut another path. He wants executive government. So, he does an executive position as NLA. He goes to parliament. If NPP becomes comes to power, he wants to be a minister. And then he will cut his path from there.

[00:05:57]He's not going back to be general secretary of the party. No, that that that is gone as far as he's concerned.

[00:06:02]Kojo Oppong Nkrumah and all these are friends. They they don't want to be party executives. If Sammy Awuku wants to be party executive, he can run for NPP general secretary and win. But that's not the that's not the path. He he's gone onto the executive path. You decide where you want to go. It's going to be very very difficult for Asiedu Nketiah to navigate that. But before I get to that trajectory, let's look at the videos of what happened. And I'm going to say a few things. Now, let's watch the video from Tamale, the first video early in the morning where Asiedu Nketiah arrived at Haruna Iddrisu's constituency. And listen to what he said.

[00:06:35]And I said that we have to change the forward line of parliament.

[00:06:41]Otherwise, it would be difficult for us to win the election.

[00:06:48]But then Muhammad disagreed with me.

[00:06:50]But I said that, "Look, you have elected me as chairman of this party.

[00:06:55]I am the coach of the party going into the election.

[00:06:59]So, let me make the changes that will win us the election.

[00:07:03]When we win, we all enjoy together." So now, you see Asiedu Nketiah is being credited with a lot of wisdom.

[00:07:11]But on this occasion, the wisdom eluded him completely in the matter from him.

[00:07:15]How do you go to Haruna Iddrisu's constituency and this matter that is dead and buried and NDC has won a great victory.

[00:07:23]Everybody is excited about the victory.

[00:07:25]This matter is dead and buried. And then you go and resurrect the matter. And you don't resurrect it by apologizing. You resurrect it by telling the people of Tamale South that if you hadn't made those changes, perhaps the NDC would have not won an election. That's an anathema. That's that's that's that's that's a cardinal sin. You can't do that. That's that's no wisdom. That's empty wisdom. You can't be a wise man or you are touted as a wise man and then you go and do this. You go and sit in Haruna Iddrisu's constituency and Haruna Iddrisu is is a tower in the NDC as far as I know that is concerned and even globally.

[00:08:04]You go to his constituency, he's not there and then you tell them that if I didn't remove your brother, we wouldn't have won the election. This NDC election, which is the biggest in the history of the Fourth Republic, cannot be said to have been won by only one aspect. And you see, if you look at President Mahama's appointments, you see that he had recognized that.

[00:08:23]So, appointments have gone to civil society. Appointments have gone to journalist. Appointments have gone to people who are non-core to the NDC agenda. And these appointments have gone because the president has recognized that the victory that he got and the victory that the NDC got was made of many strands. It wasn't a victory because Asiedu Nketia did this or John Mahama did that or Sam George did this.

[00:08:48]Many people contributed. So, all of those aspects of people who contributed have been recognized in the appointments that the president has given. Now, if you are a vice chairman of a party, even if you look at the appointments president has given, you will not go and make that preposterous statement that it was because of your decision to remove somebody that is why the party won. That if you hadn't removed them, the party would have lost the election. I mean, that is the lowest. I can't see how anybody who is described as a wise man will go and say something like that. But Asiedu Nketia said it.

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