Johnson Asiedu Nketia, National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has revealed how he came by the nickname, ‘General Mosquito’ in Ghana’s politics.
According to the trained teacher who served as the longest General Secretary of the NDC, he was given the name whilst serving as a Member of Parliament in the Fourth Republic.
He served as Member of Parliament for Wenchi West in the then Brong Ahafo region on the ticket of the NDC.
Whilst in Parliament, the NDC Chairman speaking on Accra-based Starr FM revealed he was given the name by his colleague MPs in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for a role he played in one of the Committees he served on.
“I earned that name in Parliament and it has to do with my work on the appointment committee. It was actually given to me by my colleagues in the NPP in Parliament,” he disclosed.
He says the name, as given to him by the NPP then, was meant to be derogatory but he adopted and used it to his advantage.
“It was intended as a derogatory title to mock me but being the teacher that I am, I adopted it just to shame them. I took the name and many people are now making their children General Secretary,” he indicated.
Asiedu Nketia contested as MP for the Wenchi West constituency and served as MP for 12 years. During his term in Parliament, he served on several Committees such as the Appointments Committee, Finance Committee, Public Accounts Committee, Chairman, Mines and Energy Committee, and Minority spokesperson on Food, Agriculture, and Cocoa Affairs.
Johnson Asiedu Nketia, from 1997 to 2001, served as a Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture (Crops). During NDC’s delegate congress in December 2005, he won almost 80% of the votes to become the 3rd General Secretary of the NDC.
He was re-elected as General Secretary of his party in the congress that took place in January 2010 by 93 percent votes. He was elected to the Consultative Assembly which drafted the 1992 constitution.
He became Chairman of the NDC in their 2021 Congress in Accra. The ‘General’ attached to the ‘Mosquito’ is from the office he occupied for the NDC from 2005 to 2021.
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