...He is not card-bearing member of NPP - gen. Sec.
Accra, March 20, GNA - Nana Ohene Ntow, New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary, on Monday said Professor Al-Hassan Wayo Seini has not yet been accorded full membership status in the NPP after he had resigned from the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

It is that which makes him eligible to contest the Tamale Central Constituency bye-election as an independent candidate. He said a clause in the NPP Constitution that barred card-bearing members of the Party from contesting elections as independent candidates was not applicable to Professor Wayo Seini since he was not a card-bearing member.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra in an interview on why Professor Wayo Seini was standing as an independent parliamentary candidate in the Tamale Central Constituency bye-election, Nana Ntow said Prof Wayo Seini's candidature "does not raise any constitutional problem for the NPP".

He said although the NPP had accepted Prof Wayo Seini's decision to rejoin the Party after resigning as National Vice Chairman, he had not yet been furnished with the necessary documents covering his full membership.

He said the NPP would, however, not prevent Party loyalists, who sympathized with Professor Wayo Seini's cause to campaign for him towards the forthcoming bye-election.

He said the Party would be willing to work with Prof Wayo Seini just like other independent Members of Parliament, if he were to win the Tamale Central seat.

Prof. Seini, until March 2, was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale Central, a seat he won on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), in Election 2004.

Nana Ntow said the Party's decision not to contest the Tamale Central seat was aimed at bringing lasting peace to the Dagbon Traditional Area, adding; "the peace of Tamale and Dagbon is more important to the NPP than winning one seat in Parliament".

He said the NPP had taken the decision after several consultations with supporters of the Party within the Tamale Central Constituency and also with the awareness that the period of bye-election coincided with the funeral of the Ya- Na Yakubu Andani II, the Overlord of Dagbon, who was assassinated in 2002.