Suspended Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Ablekuma West, Nii Djabang Abbey, has accused the National Executives of the elephant family of aiding the re-election of the incumbent MP for the area, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, to represent the party in the November 7 Parliamentary polls.
Abbey, who is livid about the outcome of last Saturday's polls, described Ursula’s victory as injustice perpetuated on the people of Ablekuma West constituency.
He told Accra-based Okay FM that he was least surprised about the number of delegates that voted for Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful because the election was well planned in her favour much to the detriment of the other contestants.
“Ursula organized the election for her own self with 632 delegates out of which she polled 554 votes. She got the assistance from the National Executives to win her own organized election,” he fumed.
Mrs. Owusu-Ekuful last polled 554 votes to win the controversial Ablekuma West NPP parliamentary primary. Her only contender in the race, Roni Nicole garnered 317 of the total valid votes cast.
A third candidate, a former Constituency Chairman, had to pull out some few days to the event citing illegality in the processes leading to the polls.
Abbey, who is incensed by the turn of events in the constituency, further told the Accra-based radio station because the National Executives were bent on Ursula winning the polls, none of the constituency executives was brought on board as far as the organization of the election was concerned.
That aside, he said the incumbent MP was given the opportunity to compile her voters’ register for the election, a situation he noted, put the other aspirants in a very difficult position to have a level playing field to compete fairly.
These together with some other reasons compelled thirteen (13) constituency executives to resign their post on the eve of the election.
“The 13 that resigned has always believed that as constituency executives they have to ensure that the election was properly organized with credible voters’ register from all the polling stations with the assistance of the Council of Elders, Patrons and Coordinators. We have done this at different stages and used the album for several elections to elect our leaders. So they were baffled that they were left out in the organization of the constituency elections”.
“The vetting committee of the constituency was also left out in the vetting process as well as the election committee. All that we saw was whole machinery from the national headquarters came down to the constituency to perpetuate injustice on the people”.
“On April 1, 2016, they requested to meet all the three aspirants. The Regional Chairman Ismael Ashitey informed us about the date for the election which was slated for April 9, 2016, but one of our members raised objection that why are we going to use two albums for the election because one of the albums was not compiled by the constituency executive committee?”
“He told us it was NEC that gave Ursula the authority to compile her own album which was to be merged with the old album for the election. He, therefore, told them that he will not be part of the illegal album. That album that was used was illegal album, an imported album. It was fraudulently obtained. It had 632 delegates as against the constituency album which has 575 delegates,” he added.