The call by peace loving people as well as the National Peace Council for the electioneering campaign be conducted in a peaceful manner seems to have fallen on the deaf ears of the sitting Member of Parliament for Madina in the Greater Accra Region.
This paper can report that the modes of campaigning of the MP, Alhaji Amadu Sorogho especially after losing the National Civic Education Commission’s parliamentary debate in the area is fast brewing tension and becoming a source of worry to many in the Constituency.
One of his actions likely to spark fire in the not too long days to come among the supporters of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and that of the supporters of the governing National Democratic Congress supporters in one of Accra’s most populous suburbs in the country is the act of defacing the billboards of the NPP’s parliamentary candidate.
This paper last week visited the ’Atomic Junction’ area of the Constituency and along the sides of the overhead bridge lay a huge billboard belonging to Amadu Sorogho hosted on that of Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface’s banner, the NPP’s candidate.
The huge billboard has the portrait of the MP and that of the President Mahama with the inscriptions ‘JM toaso; 4 more years for JM, 4 more years for sorogho changing lives’.
The NPP’s banner hosted with the intention to sell the image of the NPP’s parliamentary candidate and that of the flag bearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo with the bold headline “Mission Madina’ along the major street leading to the Atomic area has been taken over by the MP.
However, this paper is reliably informed that NPP supporters in the area are not happy about the current developments by the MP and are also regrouping to deface NDC posters.
The blatant disregard for the rules of fairness was what had been exhibited by MP who is also the Chairman of the Select Committee on Mines and Energy in Parliament.
In the same vein last month, supporters of Alhaji Amadu Sorogho rolled out same plot to shred his main contender’s posters.
Agents of the MP were seen defacing the posters of Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface.
When this paper visited the area it came to the fore posters of the former Minister of Works and Housing in the immediate past John Agyekum Kufuor's Administration are being defaced particularly in the Madina-Welfare and its environs in the Constituency.
At the scene, the agents of MP have pasted the sitting MP’s posters on that of the NPP’s candidates in the said areas like Rawlings Roundabout among others
The incident this paper learnt was carefully executed by the agents of the sitting, MP tasked to splash his posters in the area, after he struggled to marshal party supporters to his campaign launch.
This paper can report that the MP and some of his agents in the area have resorted to these inferior tactics, because the cards of the MP who was a former Board Chairman of the Ghana National Fire Service under whose tenure uniforms were purchased with condoms in them are crumbling in the Constituency.
Information available to this paper has it that some core NDC supporters in the area have resolved to vote skirt and blouse to wit vote for John Mahama and vote for Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface in the December 7, polls.
This paper has been reliably informed that the MP has over the years taken the constituents for granted because he had not had a formidable competitor in the race for the legislature since he assumed office in 2004.
The Bawku born legislator out of frustration is rolling out these plots to make his main competitor in the December parliamentary race unpopular to his advantage even though information on the ground suggests that he has lost touch with the people of the Constituency.
This paper further learnt that some chiefs and opinion leaders in the Constituency have shown him the exit claiming, he had taken the electorate of the area for granted.
The information says the NDC in the area got to this point, because Alhaji Sorogho, has turned himself into a stranger is his own Constituency thereby giving the NPP candidate more leverage with his policy of openness.
When this paper reached the NPP candidate to comment on the latest developments in the area over the defacing of his posters, he decline comment directing the news team to go and see it for themselves.
Attempts to get MP also proved futile as his cell phone was dead at the time of filing the story.
More to come!