The crisis within the Wa Central Constituency of the NPP in the Upper West Region over who should be the parliamentary candidate, has taken a national character with the regional party executive and the Upper West Regional Minister, Mr Mogtari Sahanun, locking horns with the NPP General Secretary, Mr Dan Botwe.

Information reaching ?The Evening News? newspaper has it that the General Secretary and the Regional Minister, over the weekend, engaged each other in a hot, unpalatable exchange of words on the issue on telephone, resulting in the former allegedly banging the phone on the latter.

A press statement issued and signed by the Regional Chairman of the NPP, Alhaji Abdulai Issahaku, described comments allegedly made by Mr Dan Botwe as infantile, unacceptable, unworkable and not in consonance with the party?s way of selecting candidates, and should be ignored and treated with the contempt it deserved.

?We will want to make it clear to Mr Botwe that there is no way a candidate can be imposed on any constituency. Mr Eledi is a party man he has the right to contest at the primaries. Nobody has any quarrel with that. He is free to come down for the primaries and if he is picked that ends it. No way for imposition?, the statement insisted.

?Let us remind Mr Botwe and his cohorts that at the close of nomination for the position of General Secretary, Mr Botwe was the only person who had filed his paper, he in no way called himself the General Secretary until the party went to congress to confirm him as such. ?Is this the case with Eledi? When and where was the congress held and by whom to confirm him as the candidate?

?On what grounds does Mr Botwe describe him as the sole candidate for Wa Central in the national print media?? the statement questioned. The statement said it was a fact that Major (rtd) Edward Yirimambo and Mr Clement Eledi filed their nomination for the Wa Central constituency when nominations were opened, but no primaries were conducted to select a candidate for the constituency.

It said with the creation of the Wa West Constituency, the Wa Central Constituency was not merely split into two as being alleged, but that quite a large number of electoral areas from the then Wa East constituency had been joined to the Wa Central Constituency.