K.T. Hammond to NDC: scrap the party if you reject coup legacy
9th February 2026
Former Trade and Industry Minister, Kobina Tahiru Hammond, has launched a blistering critique of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), arguing that the party has no moral standing to denounce coup leaders unless it is prepared to disband itself entirely.
His comments come amid heated national debate over the government’s proposal to rename Kotoka International Airport as Accra International Airport, a move that has divided public opinion and stirred strong political reactions.
Speaking on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem, the former Adansi Asokwa Member of Parliament dismissed the renaming initiative as poorly timed and disconnected from the realities confronting ordinary Ghanaians.
He argued that with rising living costs, joblessness, and infrastructure shortfalls weighing heavily on citizens, the government should be focusing on bread-and-butter issues rather than symbolic changes.
According to Mr Hammond, the airport renaming debate reflects misplaced priorities at a moment when decisive economic interventions are urgently needed to ease public hardship.
He then turned his fire on the NDC’s historical roots, insisting that the party cannot selectively condemn figures associated with military takeovers while benefiting from a political lineage born out of one.
Mr Hammond pointed out that the NDC evolved from the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), which emerged after the December 31, 1981 coup led by Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings.
“If the NDC truly stands against coup makers like Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka, then consistency demands that they dissolve the party and create a new one,” he declared. “You cannot separate the NDC from the coup that gave birth to its political tradition.”
He stressed that Ghana’s history of military interventions is deeply intertwined with the origins of the NDC, making it contradictory, in his view,