Some people say, fear delegates but I believe that the delegates have the best wisdom and they have spoken and told us what they want and it is our duty to work with the blueprint that they have given us, former President John Dramani Mahama has said.
Speaking moments after the newly elected national executive members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) were sworn into office on Sunday morning, he said: “These gentlemen and women here have been elected by the delegates to serve a mandate till 2026 and it is going to be a very important mandate, because a most critical election with the highest stakes is due in 2024 and this executive is going to oversee that election.”
“I believe that they understand the responsibility that has been thrust on their shoulders and the first thing I will say is that this celebration must be very short, we must cut the celebration short and set to work immediately,” he added.
Below is the full address by former President Mahama
Two years ago, we started this re-organisation exercise, it has been a slow but thorough exercise.
There are many times in this journey when many people asked me why it is taking so long and I said better for us to do this exercise thoroughly than to rush it and repeat the mistakes of the past.
It has been two long years but in the end, we’ve come to the climax of the exercise and that is the congress that we have held today.
Ladies and gentlemen, the delegates have spoken and we have heard.
Some people say, fear delegates but I believe that the delegates have the best wisdom and they have spoken and told us what they want and it is our duty to work with the blueprint that they have given us.
These gentlemen and women here have been elected by the delegates to serve a mandate till 2026 and it is going to be a very important mandate, because a most critical election with the highest stakes is due in 2024 and this executive is going to oversee that election.
I believe that they understand the responsibility that has been thrust on their shoulders and the first thing I will say is that the celebration must be very short, we must cut the celebration short and set to work immediately.
As I said, we are all the winners, for those who were elected, we must be gracious in victory and for those who have lost let us understand that there is a lot of room under the umbrella for everybody and as the National Chairman said, all the party must be saying is that, we want you to serve in another role/capacity.
We are all going to work together, the council of elders, the national executive committee and the functional executive committee to make sure that all those who were not elected have a role to play in the victory of 2024.
And so to climax this, I want to thank the congress planning committee, chaired by Honourable Alex Segbefia for a very wonderful job that they have done.
I want to thank the police, to think that they have been on their feet since 10am yesterday, it is not something that everybody can do.
And so to all police officers and those who coordinated the security from the police service, I want to congratulate you and thank you very much, we are very grateful to you.
And finally I want to thank the great delegates, most of them would have arrived home by now, others are still on their way, I want to thank them for coming and letting us know their minds and to assure them that what they have done here since yesterday, and the decisions they have taken are the first steps towards success in Election 2024 and that by the grace of God, Insha Allah, NDC on January 7, 2025, will come to rescue the people of Ghana from the current hardships, economic mismanagement and corruption that we are currently seeing.
In the meantime we will continue to work to hold this government accountable to the people of Ghana and so on this note, I want to thank all of you who have stayed with us since yesterday till now, I want to thank you, may God send everybody back home safely.
