Kofi Adams, suspended Deputy General Secretary for the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), has described the party’s General Secretary Johnson Asiedu Nketia as a liar bent on preventing him from contesting the Buem Parliamentary seat. Mr. Adams has been disqualified from contesting the impending February 26, 2013 by-election on the ticket of the NDC because he is on suspension. Mr. Asiedu Nketia said the party cannot allow the spokesman for Former President Jerry John Rawlings to contest the by-election because he has not been reinstated as a member of the party. The National Executive Committee of the NDC suspended Mr. Adams last year following a leaked tape featuring a voice purported to be his promising to do everything possible to prevent the late Professor Mills from securing a second term in office. Mr. Adams denied the allegations and sued the party. The leadership of the party on Tuesday January 22, 2013 met and decided not to allow Mr. Adams to contest the by-election on the ticket of the NDC. The party took that position in light of the fact that the case is still under investigation, Mr. Asiedu Nketia said, because Kofi Adams did little to get the matter resolved out of court. He said Mr. Adams withdrew the case from the court on January 10, 2013, when the Buem seat was declared vacant following the death of then MP Henry Ford Kamel on Christmas Day last year. “He is on suspension and all his rights have been extinguished temporarily,” Mr. Asiedu Nketia told Joy News on Wednesday. In a sharp denial, Mr. Adams described the latest development as a decision taken by Mr. Asiedu Nketia and party Chairman Dr. Kwabena Agyei, whom he said have only succeeded in disqualifying him from contesting the primaries, “but not in the actual by-election.” “The General Secretary for once must get it right; the party is not run on his head, the party is run with a constitution....It’s a bad decision, it’s a bad decision for the party, it’s a bad decision and the people of Buem would be the ones who will decide”. Mr. Adams further denied claims that he did not make efforts to get the matter resolved. He claimed to have called on Mr. Ken Dzirasah to get the matter resolved but the party leadership did not make themselves available. According to Mr. Adams, he got the opportunity to meet the committee only on 11th July, 2012, and since then he never got the chance to meet them again. “When you have a General Secretary that comes to public to speak lies, this is what happens...You can’t have a General Secretary that comes out, because you hate somebody, and be spewing falsehood...If you say you don’t want me to contest, say so but don’t say things that don’t exist.” Listen to Johnson Asiedu Nketia and Kofi Adams in the attached audio