Opinions of Thursday, 29 May 2014

Columnist: Issah, Kassim

Hon Nana Oye Lithur Must Be Stopped Now!

Ladies and gentlemen of the inky fraternity, we extend to you warm felicitations from the Ledzokuku Constituency. We wish to use this Press Release to relay through you to His Excellency the President, the need to immediately call to order, Hon Nana Oye Lithur, the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection in the way she handles issues concerning our MP and Deputy Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Hon Benita Sena Okity-Duah and the Ledzokuku Constituency on the whole. We are a group of NDC Branch Executives and youth drawn from various Branches within the Ledzokuku Constituency.
To start, we all monitored on our various news platforms discussions on the ongoing expansion of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty programme across the country. As we have come to know through your reportage and our own investigations, Hon Nana Oye Lithur has personally refused to enroll the Ledzokuku Constituency on the LEAP programme despite the numerous appeals to her by our MP and her first Deputy Minister, Hon Benita Sena Okity-Duah for reasons best known to her. We take a strong exception to that act of wickedness being perpetuated by Nana Oye Lithur against the good people of Teshie. We believe that like all poor Communities across Ghana, Teshie needs to be enrolled on LEAP programme as a matter of great importance.
Ladies and gentlemen, we also wish to use your various platforms to condemn the gross disrespect and insulting behavior Hon Nana Oye Lithur shown to our MP, Hon Benita Sena Okity-Duah and the NDC in Ledzokuku on Saturday, the 24th of May 2014 during the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection programme at the Teshie Salem Park.
On that Saturday, as we witnessed, Hon Nana Oye Lithur came to the programme in Teshie and despite all the promptings failed to even appreciate the effort made by her Deputy and the MP of the Constituency, Hon Benita Sena Okity-Duah to be present to hold the effort when she, Hon Nana Oye Lithur wasn’t around, eventhough the former has been sick for a while now. She however went on to acknowledge a known NPP Parliamentary Aspirant, Nii Adjei Klu and further asked the people gathered to give all credit to two people she described as “indigenes of Teshie”, Nii Adjei Klu and one other person for their supposedly roles in making the NHIS registration a reality. To add insult to injury, Hon Nana Oye Lithur threatened to cause the arrest of one of the NDC youth for daring to draw her attention to the political blunder she was committing.
What is Hon Nana Oye Lithur up to? Why is she trying to make our MP unpopular at all cost? What is her agenda with Nii Adjei Klu as he has been seen with Nana Oye Lithur on many occasions? Indeed, Nii Adjei Klu was with Nana Oye Lithur on their recently trip to the US for the CSW programme. Is Nana Oye Lithur teaming up with the NPP to unseat Hon Benita Sena Okity-Duah in Ledzokuku?
We have heard of the one-man show Hon Nana Oye Lithur is running at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, but we want to state with all the force we can garner, that we will resist any attempt by Nana Oye Lithur to frustrate and make our MP unpopular, especially in Ledzokuku. We labored to win and secure the votes in Ledzokuku for the NDC and President Mahama and we will not sit down and watch Nana Oye Lithur and her NPP surrogates to destroy all we have built, even at the risk of Hon Nana Oye Lithur arresting all of us in Ledzokuku.
We don’t want things to reach a stage where the unfortunate incident that happened between Hon Nana Oye Lithur and Hon Rachel Appoh reached. We humbly appeal to H.E President Mahama to call Hon Nana Oye Lithur to order. Her gross disrespect to her deputies and the NDC must cease now. Where was Hon Nana Oye Lithur when we were campaigning in 2012 anyways?
Thank you very much.

Kassim Issah
Branch Secretary/ Constituency Executive Member
Tel: 0268796959/ 0208764119

Naomi Tsikpo
Branch Youth Organiser
Tel: 0236916138