Politics of Wednesday, 25 October 2023

Source: Richard Obeng Bediako, Contributor

I have not given any chairman GH¢100,000 - Dr. Bawumia

NPP flagbearer hopeful, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia NPP flagbearer hopeful, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia

Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has refuted claims that he has paid GH¢100,000 to all NPP regional party chairmen across the country.

According to him, those allegations are false and frivolous.

“If you miss the ball, don’t miss the man” tactics will fail. We are about to make history in our party and this country. Unfortunately, the way the results of the super delegates came, many of our opponents are confused and they are seeing a looming defeat on 4 November, and because of that, they have decided to adopt some new tactics"

"The new tactic is [that], if you miss the ball, don’t miss the man, that is the new tactic that they are adopting. They have decided to spread lies to bring disunity among us and create problems between chairmen and constituency executives, with polling station executives and electoral area coordinators, they want to knock our heads together.

"They say I have given all constituency chairmen, 275 constituency chairmen a hundred thousand cedis (GH¢100,000.00), and a pick-up. Have you seen any pick-up here for your chairman? This is just a ridiculous lie," he said.

"They say I will not allow in the future, polling station executives and electoral area executives to vote in the presidential elections," Dr Bawumia disclosed this when he met NPP delegates in the Northern region.

"How can this happen? I can't stop polling station executives and electoral area coordinators from voting. This was a national conference decision and I was very supportive of expanding the electoral college to allow polling station executives and electoral area coordinators to vote and by the grace of God, they will continue to vote.

"What I want to do is push for a new reform to allow electoral area coordinators to vote in the election of regional executives. So, we want to rather expand and include everybody. We don’t want to reduce and so that lie must be put to rest", he added.

Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia continued by saying: "The third lie I heard just this morning is that I want to say that all sitting MPs should go unopposed and that, no one should contest a sitting MP"

"How can I say that? The party’s constitution cannot even allow that. This party is stronger when we have democracy working and so, I will never say any sitting MP must go unopposed. There must be consensus in all constituencies and so that lie should be left alone.

"But as I have said, their tactic is that “if you miss the ball, don’t miss the man, but as for this one, they will miss the man because we will not allow their lies to take root".