The Member of Parliament (MP) for Savelugu, Muhammed Abdul-samed Gunu, has blamed the Committee led by Peter Mac Manu of doing a poor job by selecting Hajia Ayishetu Seidu for subsequent nomination as the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Savelugu by President Nana Akufo-Addo.

The MP explained that no team visited the area to solicit views on who should be nominated for the MCE role.

“There were certain key personalities that would have drawn our attention that they [committee] came to interview them and asked of their views. For instance, if somebody is a DCE for eight years during former President John Agyekum Kufuor’s term, in the person of Abubakar Ature, was not consulted, I as an MP was not consulted, you can see the kind of poor job that the committee did. They didn’t do due diligence, because you need to consult key personalities of the party,” Mr Gunu said in an exclusive interview with Class FM’s parliamentary correspondent Ekow Annan on Thursday, June 15.

Mr Gunu emphasised that “power belongs to the people because they voted us into power” and for that matter the views of the grassroots must be considered in any decision to make gains.

He pointed out that residents have raised various concerns, describing Hajia Seidu as an “alien” with explanations that during the campaign for the 2016 elections she was never “seen or visible”.

He stated that the grassroots have confirmed that “she never contributed a dime to the party when they were contributing and making sacrifices for the party”.

Additionally, he said the MCE was not a registered voter in that constituency but rather at Sagnarigu in Tamale and all these have caused agitation among the grassroots who feel she is not deserving of the MCE position.

Some irate residents clashed with police in protest over the appointment on Thursday morning. They marched to the district assembly to lock the place up to prevent the MCE from accessing her office but were prevented from entering the premises by the police.

The police fired warning shots to disperse the crowd but they remained resolute, saying they would not leave the assembly.

A protester who spoke to Class News’ regional correspondent, Mohammed Gadafi, said: “Today, we organised ourselves to go to the assembly and lock the assembly down because we will not allow the woman to be the MCE. You can’t impose anyone on us... So they came out with a lot of policemen in two buses and a pickup to harass us and we say they can’t harass us. They started beating us and we also started protecting ourselves. Right now they are shooting bullets to scare us away and we are saying that we are also not going to move. All of us are at Savelugu and we will never allow the woman to be the MCE at all cost.”

They have vowed to prevent her from working as the MCE and said they will not allow government to impose her on them.