Regional News of Thursday, 12 March 2020

Source: Hamza Lansah Lolly, Contributor

Saboba NPP boils over the alleged disqualification of a parliamentary aspirant

Emmanuel Mawanye Kotin Emmanuel Mawanye Kotin

There is tension brewing in the Saboba constituency of the Northern Region within the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) following an alleged disqualification of Mr Emmanuel Mawanye Kotin in the 2020 NPP parliamentary primaries slated on 25th April.

The youth of the party are currently demonstrating on the streets of the Saboba to register their displeasure and to send a strong signal to the party.

Mr. Emmanuel Kotin, a security expert and two others are challenging the incumbent MP, Mr. Charles Bintim in the primaries.

The Security Analyst after filling his nomination forms was vetted and cleared by the vetting committee of the party, led by the Regional Chairman, Mr. Mohammed Baantimah Adam Samba.

Mr. Emmanuel Kotin is number 4 on the ballot paper, the incumbent MP, Hon Charles Bintim number 1, Mr. Kayil Barnabas number 2 and Mr. Abraham Binapadam Jawo number 3.

Meanwhile, information reaching the constituents indicates that the National Executives of the party is allegedly planning to disqualify Mr. Emmanuel Kotin for taking the party to court some time ago thus the wrath of the youth.

According to the charged NPP youth, the reasons given to disqualify Mr. Kotin is a flaw and lacks clarity, reiterating that, they don’t want any of the aspirants to be disqualified, “we want all of them to contest so that delegates of the party will make their choice”.

The NPP youth added that all the contenders have good records and must be given a fair and equal playing field to contest the April 25th Parliamentary primaries.

A leader of the group, Godwin Mbeidobi hinted that no single allegations were leveled against Mr. Kotin during the vetting process, “he was vetted and cleared, so why this disqualification?”. He queried

“Someone is trying to remove Saboba but we will not allow ourselves to be manipulated by anybody. No one can circumvent the will of the people, this is an imposition to the party and we will reject it with all our might”.

According to him, the NPP is repeating the mistake of the NDC in 2016, where a candidate was imposed on the NDC membership. “the NPP is repeating the mistakes of the NDC but we will not allow this to happen…. we want all the aspirants to contest”.

“We are currently demonstrating peaceful to send a strong signal to the party that, we the NPP youth in Saboba are not happy with their decision… this decision if not upheld will affect the NPP chances in the upcoming 2020 elections”. He said.