A former Mayor of Accra, Mr Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson has accused Dr Richard Anane of spewing lies about him when the latter told a gathering of party supporters that in 1998, he Adjiri Blankson and others spearheaded a campaign to impress upon then candidate Kufuor, an elected flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party, to step down for Nana Akufo-Addo to contest in his stead.
He said it was impossible for him to have done that after Kufuor had won an overwhelming majority with over 1000 votes against Nana Addo's of about 600 votes.
“How do you go round and tell people that they should tell Kufuor to step down. Does it make sense? Who in his right senses will do this? I think it is not fair.”
“It is not true, why should he (Anane) pencil me. Is it because Nana has made me his coordinator for Greater Accra and Volta? It is not fair,” Mr Adjiri Blankson said in a reaction.
Dr Richard Anane had stated at the campaign launch of Mr Alan Kyerematen last Saturday that, some people led by Adjiri Blankson approached the late B.J. Da Rocha in 1998 for him to impress upon then flagbearer elect, Kufuor, to step down for Akufo-Addo to take over.
When Da Rocha refused, he said they again went to then party national chairman Samuel Odoi Sykes for him to prevail on Kufuor to step down.
His disclosure was in reaction to recent agitations from some party members for all presidential aspirants to step down for Nana Addo. Dr Anane’s explanation was that the current call was not new but a repetition of the 1998 attempt to get Kufuor to step down.
But he would rather prefer that the about 140,000 delegates who would be voting in the party's October 18 delegates conference are allowed to complete the exercise to decide who leads the party.
Responding to the accusations, Mr Adjiri Blankson said he never went to Da Rocha on such a mission and that the only time he sat with him (Da Rocha) was when they registered the party and they had to go for their certificate from the Electoral Commission.
“I have been in this game for umpteenth year. I heard him saying that I said Kufuor was sick and Kufuor should step down.”
“This is absolute nonsense coming from a very senior Minister in our government. These things should stop. If he wants to campaign for Alan, he is for Alan and I am for Nana and Nana is doing better, so he had a chance at Lapaz to pontificate on the virtues of Alan but he chose to ridicule me when I have not seen any of these people.”
“What I have realized is, if somebody is sinking, he wants to sink with someone else.
Mr Adjiri Blankson said in 1998 he was the polling agent for Nana Akufo-Addo in Sunyani. “My offence was that at any time that the votes were counted, I will seek for a recount and I realised that some elders of the party were not happy. At the end of the day candidate Kufuor won.”
Going back into history, Mr Adjiri Blankson said he was a close friend of Kufuor because of Victor Owusu, but in 1998 he saw Kufuor as being too soft and that he thought Nana could be a better candidate to face Rawlings and the PNDC turned NDC.
“We needed somebody who could match the tantrums of the NDC so I began supporting Nana”.
He said he does not believe in the resort to such banters on radio on internal party issues but said it was painful senior members of the NPP would not sit down and discuss internal matters among themselves.
Listen to Mr Adjiri Blankson here
{mp3}anane_spews_lies_blankson{/mp3}
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