Profile: Dan Abodakpi;victory is at hand
As a former minister of state and Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Daniel Akwasi Abodakpi is not a political minnow, and so he is not in the National Chairmanship of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to add up to numbers but to give the other contestants a good run for their money.
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The former MP for Keta and Ghana’s High Commissioner to Malaysia has a simple mission: To reorganise the NDC for sustained victory.
Born on February 27, 1950, Mr Abodakpi has said his choice of the number one spot on the ballot paper for the governing party’s forthcoming national delegates congress scheduled for December 20, 2014 in Kumasi, is a divine sign of beckoning victory.
“The number one position is the hand of God at work,” the former Minister of Trade and Industry told journalists at the NDC headquarters in Accra recently.
According to Mr Abodakpi, “victory is at hand, and the outcome of the December 20 congress would only be a manifestation of what God has already approved.”
Mr Abodakpi’s contestants are the incumbent, Dr Kwabena Adjei; Chairman of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Kofi Portuphy and current Vice-Chairman, Huudu Yahaya. They picked the fourth, second and third positions respectively on the ballot paper.
Website
Mr Abodakpi, who had his secondary education at the Takoradi Secondary School and continued at the Presbyterian Training College, Akropong, for his Post- secondary Teacher Training Certificate ‘A’, has already launched his website, www.danabodakpi.com, at his campaign office in Accra.
The website provides the platform for sharing of information and interaction with party members on his vision, mission and plans for the party.
Mr Abodakpi holds a Diploma in Science and Education from the Advanced Teacher’s Training College in Winneba. He believes the delegates have the key to saving the party, and that making the wrong choices would be detrimental to the party.
Achievements
Prior to his appointment as Ghana’s High Commissioner to Malaysia, Ambassador Abodakpi had a long spell in Public Service in Ghana. From 1982 and 1986 (the early years of the 31st December Revolution), he held positions including Regional Coordinator for the People’s Defence Committee and National Defence Committee and rose through the ranks.
He became Deputy Secretary for CDRs from 1986 to 1991, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry in 1993 and a substantive minister from January 1999 to January 2001.He held various positions in Parliament during his 16- year stewardship as MP for Keta.
Incarceration
Responding to a question on the effects of his incarceration in 2007, Mr Abodakpi said there was no legal and social reason that would affect his campaign to be the next NDC National Chairman since “that episode of my life belongs to the past and I have moved on.”
Mr Abodakpi confirmed that he had a good relationship with President John Mahama and former President Jerry John Rawlings.
His mission
His mission, which also forms the theme for his campaign, is “reconnecting the NDC to its mass base and to its core values.”
“We have to save the party from further losing touch with the mass of cadres and grass-roots members who have sacrificed for it over the years,” he told the Daily Graphic recently.
He promised that under his chairmanship, both the youth and women’s wings of the party would be made to develop annual programmes that would be budgeted for by the party to resource them to function more purposefully to advance the achievement of the party’s social democratic goals.
He also said he intended to promote the establishment of a party school to provide a platform for the effective training of NDC members, particularly the youth, on the core social democratic values of the party, as well as general democratic and governance principles.
That, he believed, would help in developing the talents of the youth to enable them to contribute more meaningfully to the progress of the party.
His vision
According to the former chairman of the Free Zones Board, when he is elected, he will work to implement “economic empowerment” for the party’s members to enable them to resource the party at all levels.
He said it was about time the party shifted from the era where MPs, district and municipal chief executives and government appointees helped to run the party financially.
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He added that he had the ability to change the trend and promote the progress of the party.
Mr Abodakpi reiterated his stance against accepting appointments by the President to any public position, when voted into office.
According to the former Trade Minister, he is convinced that would help to protect the integrity of the party’s leadership in driving the growth of the party.
“I stand by my position that I will not take up any post to be chairman or member of any board, or head any public institution,” he said.
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He explained that other executive members were free to accept such appointments, “but I, as the chairman, have to protect the integrity of that office.” That, he said, was important because the acceptance of an appointment by the President, compromises the integrity of the office of the party chairman and added that that should not be misconstrued to mean that he would be attacking the President when voted into power.
“Rather, I aim at having a symbiotic relationship with the President, who is the leader of the party,” he added.