NPP supporters beseige Kufuor's residence

A number of supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) massed up at the residence of former President John Agyekum Kufuor yesterday morning to impress on him not to honour the invitation to attend the inauguration of President John Dramani Mahama. The supporters, some of whom had slept overnight outside the former President’s Airport residence in Accra, claimed that the decision of the former President to attend the swearing in ceremony was a betrayal of the party’s cause to seek justice in respect of the declaration of President Mahama as winner of the December 7 presidential election. To give more meaning to their pleas, some of the supporters resorted to crying and wailing outside former President Kufuor’s residence. The NPP has petitioned the Supreme Court challenging the results of the presidential election which they claim was rigged in favour of President Mahama. Yesterday was the second time the youth of the party had massed up at the residence of the former President, who won presidential elections on the ticket of the NPP in 2000 and 2004. Last Thursday, an NPP youth group, the Young Patriots, during their protest, referred to the party’s National Council meeting which had “directed that the party shall boycott the planned January 7 inauguration of President Mahama and Mr Kwesi Amissah-Arthur as the President and the Vice-President of the Republic, respectively”. Later, the Young Patriots withdrew the earlier threat to protest against former President Kufuor over his decision to attend the swearing-in ceremony. Yesterday’s protest saw some of the youth carrying bottles of Schnapps, ostensibly to invoke the spirits of their ancestors on the former President. However, those people were advised by some of the protesters to refrain from that action. At exactly 8.45 a.m., a slow-moving convoy of vehicles moved out of the residence of former President Kufuor without resistance towards the Independence Square where the ceremony took place. The professionalism of the police was on display, as they coerced and, in some cases, carried some of the protesters who lay supine on the road to prevent the former President from leaving his residence. Speaking to the Daily Graphic, the National Organiser of the Patriotic Volunteers, Mr Ebow Bansah, said it was unfair and a betrayal of the NPP’s cause for the former President to attend the inaugural ceremony. He said for the sake of unity in the NPP, the former President should have listened to the pleas of the supporters not to attend the ceremony. “Yes, he is a statesman, an ex-President for that matter, as well as a symbol of authority for the nation, but the interest of the party should have come first,” he said. He cautioned National Democratic Congress (NDC) propagandists not to misconstrue the attendance of ex-President Kufuor as an endorsement of President Mahama. The Youth Organiser of the NPP in the Ashaiman Constituency, Mr Baba Alhassan, in his remarks, told the Daily Graphic that the party was built with the effort of the grass-root supporters who had worked hard over the years to promote its messages. “This is gross disrespect to us and a disappointment to the entire party supporters who have joined the party because of its principles and objectives,” he said.