Even Bawumia’s Mother Didn’t Vote For Us

Honourable Paul Collins Appiah-Ofori, the controversial New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa in the Central Region has provided insight into the uphill task facing the opposition NPP in its bid to wrestle power from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).

In an interview on Asempa FM detailing his opposition to the selection of Dr Mahmud Bawumia as NPP’s running mate, Appiah-Ofori made startling revelations about the spectacular failure of Bawumia to not only get his town folks to vote for the NPP, but to get members of his own family, including his biological mother, to give him the vote.

In the view of Appiah-Ofori, Bawumia has a duty to ensure that members of his family vote for him, instead of sitting on the fence while they vote for the NDC.

According to him, despite the fact that the NPP was in power in 2008, Dr Bawumia failed in getting his own mother, siblings and relatives to endorse the NPP in the last elections and has to now work hard on overturning those spectacular minuses.

“Let’s make sure he gets his own mother to vote for him. His mother is NDC and Women’s Organiser for Bawumia’s hometown. His brother is NDC and Ambassador to Burkina Faso. His other relative is the DCE for that area. Another sibling is head of the Youth Employment (NYEP) and his sister is head of the School Feeding Programme. And all of them are not NPP members”, he revealed.

Though he did not add, the late father of Dr Bawumia was also a key PNDC/NDC functionary, having served in various advisory capacities to former President Rawlings.

Appiah-Ofori advised that Bawumia “do house to house, village to village” to win his hometown votes and to succeed in the difficult task of convincing his own family members to rethink their positions and vote against the NDC.

“In 2008, we were in power. The regional ministers belonged to the NPP. The District Chief executives were NPP. Yet we were unable to win. If Bawumia could not help us to even win his home constituency, what else do I need to say” he said.

“Right now as I see it, the NDC is in power. The President and Vice President are both NDC members. Almost all the sitting MPs (in Bawumia’s home region) are NDC members. We have a herculean task”, he noted, in the interview which was granted the day Akufo Addo unveiled Bawumia as his running mate few weeks ago.

Appiah-Ofori was one of those people who advised that Bawumia he posted to spend all his time in the North to win votes for the party.

Insisting that he has no personal grudge against Bawumia nor is he denigrating him, he insisted that for a man aspiring to become a top member of the party, it is essential that at least his family members support him.

In his view, though he expects Bawumia to do little in helping the ticket, he has no alternative than to work for him and the party once the flagbearer had selected him.

He explain his opposition to the choice of Bawumia by explaining that former President Kufuor’s choice of the late Aliu Mahama was rewarded by the northern regions because Aliu did a lot of work to be recognized in the north and to help the opposition come to power.