All is not well with the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Ningo-Prampram Constituency following a decision by its Member of Parliament, Mr Samuel Nartey George, to ‘fight’ the Constituency Secretary, Mr Okoe Mensah, in court over a defamation case.
The MP has sued Mensah for allegedly making false and malicious allegations about him. The MP is, therefore, praying the court to order the defendant to pay him general damages of five million Ghana cedis (GHC5,000,000) for tarnishing his image.
In his witness statement to the court and sighted by Dailymailgh.com, the embattled MP also demanded that the court should make an order perpetually injuncting the secretary, agents, assigns and servants from further publishing any defamatory words about him.
He also wants the court to compel Mensah to retract the said alleged defamatory words against him and render an unqualified apology which must be published on his social media pages, all traditional media houses in Accra for three consecutive days.
This suit comes after the Greater Accra Regional Executive Committee of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) suspended the Constituency Secretary for six months over same issue for which the MP is in court.
The party in the region took the decision two weeks after Mr. Mensah had alleged that George was behind a shooting incident that took place on Sunday, September 27, 2020 at Atta Mensah, a suburb of Mobole.
Mr Mensah, who doubles as an Assembly Member for the Mobole Electoral Area in the constituency, in a signed statement said although the residents of Mobole are peace-loving people, they would not allow themselves to be intimidated by the MP.
He also demanded that the MP should apologise to the people of the Electoral Area over the alleged gunshot.
However, the NDC legislator also came out with a statement to discredit the allegations by his constituency secretary.
Subsequently, in a statement signed by the Greater Accra Regional Secretary, Theophilus Tetteh, on Friday, Mensah had been suspended for six months in accordance with Article 46 of the NDC’s Constitution and referred the matter to the Constituency Disciplinary Committee for further action to be taken.
The secretary was again ordered by the party to render apology to the MP and the party in general which he did.
It appears that the decision by the Member of Parliament for the area to still pursue the matter in court has angered some members of the party in constituency who are threatening to make the party unattractive in the area if the party leadership at both Regional and National fail to act.
According to them, their MP’s decision is a betrayal of the NDC, and may send wrong signals to others that even after the party uses its internal mechanism to solve issues amicably, one can ignore such mechanism and pursue the matter elsewhere.
“Sam George is not helping the party’s image in the area since he became our MP. He continues to provoke each and everyone, including members of the NDC. Why will you still run to court after the party used its interal process to solve your grievances you presented before it? So what was the reason for the party punishing Okoe Mensah if not to solve the problem for peace in the party here?” one of them fumed.
They are, therefore, calling on the national leadership of the party to intervene immediately on the matter or remain silent if they, as party members in the constituency, begin to stage massive protest against the actions of the MP.
By: D. N. A. Mensah, Daily Mail GH
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