Martin Kpebu has said that he was not happy with the withdrawal of former Finance Minister Dr Kwabena Duffuor from the presidential race of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
The private legal practitioner said he placed a lot of premium on Dr Duffuor’s campaign activities and thought that he should have contested.
Kpebu said Dr Duffuor’s decision to contest was also good for the democracy of Ghana.
Speaking on the Key Points on TV3 Saturday, May 13, he said “from where I sit Duffuor was giving John Mahama a run for his money, and that was good.
“I am analyzing from the books and from what I see, those on the grounds will analyze what they see on the ground, let us not underestimate the importance of debate so Dr Duffuor was debating John Mahama that look, it is not just that you can come back and do what you were doing.”
“This is the man we booted out and we thought corruption was over but Akufio-Addo came and single-handedly resurrected him because he came to do worst, this is something that we will grapple with for a long time in our history.
“After we had said Mahama was so terrible in all respects in terms of economic management, corruption and everything, we booted him out and Akufo-Addo comes to resurrect him so Duffuor giving him a challenge was good because it will tell Mahama that he should not just take it for granted that it is all just smooth sailing and automatically come back to the office. I placed a lot of premium on what Duffuor was doing, it helps our democracy so it is not exactly good that he had to withdraw because they wouldn’t meet his concerns, I think next time he should be patient especially because we still had some time to the general elections.”
Dr Kwabena Duffuor withdrew from the NDC Presidential primaries when he addressed a press conference in Accra on Friday May 12, just a day to the elections.
He said”“At the meeting chaired by the former speaker of parliament, Rt Hori Edward Doe Adjaho, all stakeholders at the meeting agreed that the Party Chairman, Johnson Asiedu Nketia would immediately set up a technical team comprising the technical representatives from the 3 presidential aspirants and the party’s election committee to determine how soon the irregularities with the voters register could be resolved in readiness for the Presidential primaries. The technical committee was to subsequently submit a report to parties after this had been determined As I speak with you, our technical team is currently at the Party headquarters to undertake this activity.
“However, despite the assurances given to myself and my team by the Chairman of the party, the executives of the party, in a complete and unacceptable breach of faith, went ahead to convene a press conference announcing that the elections would go ahead tomorrow, without having resolved the concerns surrounding the voters register as decided at the meeting of the Council of Elders”
Dr. Duffuor added that “My concerns that the party is not ready to conduct free and fair election is evident for all to see. Taking part in such would be akin to knowingly drinking from a poisoned calabash. After consulting with my support base nationwide, I have been left with no choice but to withdraw from the Presidential election as I cannot contest in an election which is blatantly fraught with irregularities regardless of all my efforts to draw attention to same.”
Dr Duffuor filed an injunction application against the primaries but withdrew it from the court.
“The plaintiff avers that the partial delivery of the Photo Album to his representatives on 4th May 2023 was in itself out of time considering the magnitude of the verification exercise required of them before the internal elections of 13th May 2023,” portions of the application said.
The campaign team Dr Duffuor earlier demanded postponement of the May 13 Presidential Primaries over what it describes as a flawed register.