Former member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and now leader of the National Liberation Congress (NLC) Stephen Atubiga says his harsh criticisms of his former party pushed it to win the 2024 elections.
Speaking in an interview on Breakfast Today on Dreamz FM, Stephen Atubiga claimed leadership of the NDC improved significantly following his constant criticisms of their handling of the party’s affairs.
“The best thing I have ever seen today is they using my chastising against them to sit up,” he stated.
“My abuse and insults for them not doing the right thing, for them not taking the party at the right direction, leadership sat up out of pain, today they have the best system. When I called them out of not having the right system to collate resource, they sat up, they invested in it.”
The NLC leader was suspended from the NDC in March 2021 over what the party said were disparaging and unfounded allegations against it and some of its leading members including Prof. Joshua Alabi.
In a letter communicating the suspension, the NDC through its Functional Executive Committee said it had Atubiga to its Disciplinary Committee to hear and determine his fate in the party.
However, Atubiga resigned from the party few months after his suspension and founded the NLC.
He continued dragging the NDC’s leadership including the now President John Dramani Mahama but has recently made U-turn, singing their praises after their landslide victory in the December 7 elections.
Stephen Atubiga explained that he formed the NLC as an adversary to put the NDC’s leadership on their toes.
Most of the wrongs he called them out over have been corrected and that has made the party attractive and resulted in its electoral victory, he said.
He added that some of the party’s bigwigs recognize his contribution to reshaping the NDC and have been thankful to him.
“Most leadership have thanked me, ‘you’ve really put fire in us, you made us to sit up, you made us to take the right choices, every member that was given a role to play, they played it well and that is how come NDC has won power'”
He said although he will not join the NDC again, he will remain a sympathizer.
“I will never ever join NDC as a member of the party but I am a sympathizer of the NDC, we didn’t form a new party, we broke away and formed another replica of the NDC, we are socialists and if you saw most of our press conferences, we said we did not form NLC to criticize NPP or any of this, we formed the party NLC to hold our leadership accountable for what they have not done that has kept the party in opposition.”
