Wa, March 17, GNA - The Upper West Regional branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has started implementing a vote catching programme that would ultimately restore the region to the Danquah/Busia/Dombo tradition in the December elections. Code named "Operation restore heritage", Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Abubakari, Regional Chairman of the party said the regional executives have already mapped out strategies to achieve that goal and would be expecting victory in at least seven constituencies in the region in the 2008 elections.

Alhaji Abubakari said this when he spoke to the Ghana News Agency in Wa at the weekend after he had visited Bulenga, Loggu and Goripie communities in the Wa East District of the region He did not disclose the strategies they had mapped out to achieve their ambition or which constituencies the NPP hoped to capture from the National Democratic Congress but warned the NDC to be prepared for a big surprise in the region this year.

The NDC currently occupied seven of the region's ten seats in Parliament with the People's National Convention and the NPP having two and one seat respectively.

He said the region produced five of the prominent politicians in the persons of the late S.D. Dombo, Jatoe Kaleo, B.K. Adama, Abaifaa Karbo and the only surviving member of the group, Kuoro Munmuni Dimbie who championed the cause of the Danquah/Busia/Dombo tradition before and after independence.

However, for inexplicable reasons, the region has always fallen to the NDC in all elections that have been conducted in the country since the beginning of the fourth republic.

Alhaji Abubakari advised constituency executives of the party to form vibrant youth wings to reach out to the communities and suburbs to extol the good work of the party to keep it in power. "The NPP has done well for Ghanaians to renew its mandate but that can only be achieved if party functionaries reach out to the people with the message of hope and prosperity under the next NPP administration with the massive improvement in social facilities and numerous welfare programmes in the last seven years as reference points". He advised supporters to separate traditional issues from party in order not to draw it into conflict situations.