... Yilo ‘rebels’ challenge chairman’s authority
Somanya/Odumase -- The two Krobo districts, Yilo and Manya, are becoming test grounds for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to assess its strength, as the party prepares to go into the 2004 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.

The Yilo Krobo constituency chairman of the party, Kingsley Ampomah, caused a stir when he signed a letter to expel 12 senior members of the party, including the district assembly’s presiding member, worsening the boiling situation in the Manya constituency where there is an in-fighting between the district chief executive (DCE), Andrews Teye, and the party’s failed parliamentary candidate in 2000, Demah Narh.

At Yilo, the rift in the party is about a section of the leadership blaming the DCE, Sub/ Lt. Christian Tettey, for being too ambitious.

The protracted chieftaincy dispute between the Odumase and Dorm clans over the paramount stool has assumed political dimensions, as Teye and Demah find themselves in the opposing factions. Teye comes from Dorm, while Demah hails from Odumase.

The Yilo issue has degenerated into alleged assassination plots in which a group has accused Sub/ Lt.Tettey of involvement.

In 1996 and 2000, Tettey stood in the parliamentary elections for the Yilo constituency but lost to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) candidate, Daniel Terkpertey.

However, when the NPP came to power Tettey and Mathew Bawa, a tutor at Yilo Krobo Secondary School, vied for the position of district chief executive.

Bawa lost to Tettey and since then there has been no peace between the two.

When the rift deepened, the constituency chairman, Nicholas Addae, and constituency organiser, Alex Narh Adjirako, fell out with the DCE and some patrons of the party in the constituency.

But the chairman and the youth organizer, realizing that their popularity had waned, reportedly frustrated efforts to hold a constituency congress to elect new executives.

It was alleged that the chairman concealed documents from the regional secretariat, ordering the holding of the congress.

Later, nine elected members of the party held a meeting and selected November 3, 2002, for the congress but it was reported that a day to the congress, the two executive members made an abortive attempt to hold a press conference at Nkurakan.

Some patrons in the constituency managed to organise a congress at Boti Falls and the chairman and the organiser lost their positions, with Kingsley Ampomah becoming the new constituency chairman.

According to the report, the old executive forged an alliance with Bawa to ensure that the district became ungovernable for Sub/ Lt. Tettey.

Around the same period, the DCE was reeling under a section of the assembly members who accused him of autocratic rule.

The former naval officer was said to have awarded a contract for the renovation of the Old Somanya market to the Manya constituency chairman, Mr. Padi Asime, without going through laid-down tender processes.

Again he was blamed for acquiring a tract of land at the foot of the Krobo mountain for the cultivation of mango for export and cassava under the President’s Special Initiative (PSI), both without the consent of the assembly.

Quite recently, the NPP held its primaries for parliamentary candidates in which the DCE contested the Yilo Krobo assembly’s presiding member, Moses Tetteh, who lost.

Incidentally, Tetteh hails from Adjikpo, a suburb of Somanya, like the NDC Member of Parliament (MP), Daniel Terkpertey.

Prior to the primaries at Somanya, Matthews Bawa, speaking to this reporter, complained that the DCE was hosting the delegates to a meal at his official residence that morning.

He said the information was confirmed when a section of the delegates rushed to the residence and he cautioned the DCE against using his incumbency to the disadvantage of the other opponent.

This resulted in a heated argument and Bawa alleged that the former naval officer pulled a pistol but the DCE’s wife and the NPP regional organizer restrained him.

As he left for his house he heard that Addai was stabbed on the head with a bottle at the DCE’s residence and he was treated and discharged at the Atua Government Hospital.

People from the Zongo community also joined in the riot that threatened security of the area.

One of the attacking groups virtually took over the Trom junction to Koforidua and Accra at the outskirts of Somanya, which became a no-go area for passers-by who were terrorized and robbed.

The District Security Council (DISEC) saw the need to beef up security by deploying soldiers to flush out the criminal elements from their hideouts.

After the swoop, a number of the gangsters fled but some were arrested.

Recently, a group including one Addo had gone to the media to make a statement that the Yilo Krobo DCE and some party executives in the constituency had engaged them to assassinate some party members including Addae and Adjirako.

The tape on which one of them, Lala, made a statement on the abortive assassination available to The Chronicle indicated that they did not expect the DCE to order soldiers and police to arrest them.

According to the tape, some of them were sleeping in coffins on sale in a bid to escape arrest.

The statement alleged that the group could not succeed on three occasions to eliminate their victims because the victims did not turn up on scheduled dates.

One of those who fell out with the DCE disclosed to The Chronicle that they felt the current constituency chairman, Kingsley Ampomah was pushed to become the chairman and that would not augur well for the party.

He said the DCE currently holds a regional executive position and wanted to follow it with a parliamentary position, adding that these are the only problems that they have with the DCE and his current executive.

The Akropong Divisional Police Command when reached stated that it had a number of suspects on its wanted list, including one Addo, whose picture appeared in a newspaper with others claiming that they were contracted to assassinate some party gurus.