Politics of Thursday, 6 February 2020

Source: GNA

New NPP group promises to snatch orphan constituencies

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The “G boys”, an emerging political group of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has assured their unflinching support to help the NPP to snatch all orphan parliamentary seats in Election 2020.

The group is also poised to win the presidential polls in those constituencies in the Bono, Bono East and Ahafo Regions.

As Election 2020 gathers momentum, the group, therefore, affirmed their readiness and commitment to shoulder the responsibility to go round the constituencies in the regions, propagate government social intervention programmes and sell the ideologies and philosophies of the NPP to the electorate.

The ruling NPP has nine orphan constituencies in the then Brong-Ahafo Region, out of which two more regions were created.

There were 29 constituencies of which the NPP had 20, and nine for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).

The NDC's nine comprise six in the Bono East - Kintampo North, Kintampo South, Sene West, Sene East, Pru West and Pru East, and Asutifi South and Asunafo South in the Ahafo Region and Banda in the Bono Region.

According to the group, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s government achieved a lot, but regretted that poor communication in selling those achievements to the electorate, particularly those at the grassroots was the big challenge for the ruling NPP.

In an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Mr. Richard Kwadwo Adu, a former Wenchi Constituency Youth Organiser of the NPP, and leader of the group said President Akufo-Addo’s government had laid a solid foundation for national reconstruction, which provided the NPP better campaign messages to sell to the electorate.

“What we have to do now as a political party is to strengthen our internal communication systems and get the electorate abreast with government policies and programmes so as to enable them to make informed decisions and enlightened choices in the general election”, he said.

Mr. Adu, also a former Assemblyman for Ntoase Electoral Area in the Wenchi Municipality observed from indications the fortunes of the NPP in the Election 2020 looked brighter, but it would take hard work for the Party to be retained in government.

“We must avoid complacency and base our campaign messages on issues of expanding and strengthening government flagship programmes such as; the free SHS, Planting for Food and Jobs, One-village-one-Dam and the Planting for Export and Rural Development”.

“I strongly believe that if the concepts of these laudable programmes get down well with the electorate, nobody will have to tell them to vote to maintain the NPP”.

Mr. Adu said the implementation of the free SHS alone had restored the hopes of many Ghanaian voters, hence the need for all NPP supporters to join and intensify the electioneering so that the opposition NDC would not have any platform to “peddle campaign of lies” to sway the attention of voters from government successes.

In a related development, Nana Adom Busia, a leading member of the NPP has taken a swipe at those aspirants preparing to contest the NPP parliamentary primaries for the slot to lead the Party in the Wenchi constituency.

He told the GNA the seat “is not a wholesale”, but reserved for industrious citizens of the area, who somehow contributed to the development of the Wenchi Municipality.

Nana Busia who is a trained Journalist and businessman, therefore advised the NPP delegates to check the background and track records of the various before taking the decision to give any of them the nod to become a parliamentary candidate.

As one of the strongholds of the NPP, Nana Busia regretted Wenchi was still lagging behind in development because successive NPP governments had neglected the area.

He called on the leadership of the NPP to ensure that all aspirants contesting the Party’s parliamentary primaries nationwide were given equal playing fields and advised constituency executives to desist from rallying behind particular candidates.

This, he noted would greatly jeopardise the prevailing peace in the Party, affect the campaign and narrow the fortunes of the NPP in the Election 2020.