Supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Navrongo Central Constituency and members of a group with the name “Kofi Adda for Peace and Development” have asked the Upper East Regional Minister, Tangoba Abayage, not to blame anybody but herself for her defeat at the just-ended 2020 general elections.
The Regional Minister had blamed the Minister for Aviation and Member of Parliament (MP) for the Navrongo Central Constituency, Joseph Kofi Adda, for her defeat, saying Adda campaigned against her.
But speaking to the press at a press conference organised in Navrongo, a constituency in the Upper East Region, the group said the Regional Minister failed to win the seat because she insulted hairdressers and market women as dirty before the election among other reasons.
“Hon. Tangoba Abayage insulted hairdressers and market women that they were dirty and useless and drove them away from her house whilst the NDC’s Hon Samson Chiragia received them danced with them and provided them with food and money for their function,” the group said in a statement signed by Ing. David Basepe Nyerere Adda.
The NPP supporters stated further that that the Regional Minister’s own “words and posture were loud and clear that she did not need Hon Joseph Kofi Adda to win the seat.”
“She said she would buy the people with money. It, therefore, sounds so absurd that the same Regional Minister and her self-isolated camp would be seeking to give the Minister for Aviation a bad name for her electoral defeat,” the supporters said.
Answering questions from journalists during at the press conference, one of the members of the group, Gilbert Bawoloriko, said, “The last time after the primaries we told them that the whole Navrongo would go independent. If they had allowed it to happen, the seat would have come back to NPP. But it didn’t happen because Kofi Adda is a listening man. He disappointed us. Kofi Adda himself disappointed us because some of us were calling for him to go independent because we love the party, we don’t want to lose the seat and we told him if he wins, he will send the seat back to the party and we will remain NPP but he listened to his bosses and that’s why he honourably rescinded. He didn’t go independent and here we are, the executives led us to a very disgraceful defeat. We don’t want it to happen again and so we are calling that they should step aside. That’s the honourable thing to do because we have the capable people to do the work”.
According to the statement, the Regional Minister performed abysmally at the polls as a result of some abusive language she and her camp hurled at the MP and members of his camp after the MP lost the primaries to her in June this year.
The Regional Minister polled 15,821 votes out 44,343 total votes cast in the constituency whilst Samson Chiragia of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) secured 26,947 votes, giving a huge gap of 11,126 votes. Joseph Kofi Adda won the seat in 2016 with 20, 667 votes against the 17, 203 votes obtained by the NDC’s Mark Owen Woyongo.
The group also alleged that Abayage also hired a group of media practitioners to project her and the same media practitioners ridiculed Adda on air and online after his defeat at the primaries.
“Throughout the months of mockery and ill-treatment meted out to Hon Joseph Kofi Adda and supporters, the parliamentary candidate in the person of Hon Tangoba Abayage didn’t see the need to call them to order as though she was very pleased at the things her camp was doing against the members of the same NPP family. Elders of the party attempted to forge a reconciliation between the two camps ahead of the main election but the camp of Hon Tangoba Abayage would not cooperate. It was expected that her camp would draw the camp of Hon Joseph Kofi Adda as close as possible to itself to double the efforts needed to retain the seat but the needed unity never materialised,” the statement noted.
The NPP supporters also called for the immediate resignation of the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) for the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, Williams Aduum, and the entire Navrongo Central Constituency Executive as well as the Regional Minister to resign their positions over the party’s “disgraceful” performance at the elections.
“We are calling for the immediate resignation of the entire Navrongo Central Constituency NPP Executive and the Municipal Chief Executive for their inability to keep the party united in the constituency, thus the humiliating performance of the party in the just-ended general elections. It is shameful to note that NPP lost in the polling stations where the MCE Williams Aduum, the Chairman, the First Vice Chairman and even the parliamentary candidate herself, Hon Tangoba Abayage, hail from.
“We also call on the Regional Minister to do the honourable thing and leave office because out of the fifteen constituencies in the region, NPP won only one seat and lost the previous three seats which were occupied by the party. This is because the Regional Minister, Hon. Tangoba, couldn’t market the party well in the region, thus the first-ever disgraceful defeat of the party in the region,” the group’s statement said.
Gaspard Ayuureneeya.