Rawlings is not founder of NDC – Obed Asamoah insists

• Posted on August 10, 2017August 10, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

A former national chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Obed Asamoah has reiterated his stance that former President Jerry John Rawlings was not the founder of the NDC.

According to him, at the time of filing for the registration of the NDC in 1992, the former President was still serving in the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) and could not have rep resented any district as a founder member.

In a radio interview with Accra based Joy FM Wednesday evening, Dr Asamoah who praised former deputy chief of staff, Dr Valerie Sawyerr for taking on Mr Rawlings in the Ntomtom Nwansena article said after the party was set up a clause was inserted in the constitution of the party to recognize his contribution to the ideals upon which the party was set up.

“I [Asamoah] dealt with the application of the NDC to the Electoral Commission for registration. The law at the time and still I think the laws are the same that you must have founders from the different districts, and at that time I think you had to have at least one from each district to sign the papers and I can show you the duplicate of the papers, they are here right now because I dealt with that whole process, and President Rawlings’ name is not on that list.
“Now the reason he wasn’t on the list is that at that time by a law which the PNDC itself passed and which he had signed, if you were an active member of the military you couldn’t be a founder of a party and he didn’t resign from the military until about just a few weeks before the elections of 1992. From that point of view he is certainly not a founder but when we set up the party we realized the need to recognize his contribution to the whole idea,” Dr Asamoah said in the radio interview.

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