Alhaji Manaf Mohammadu Osumanu Alidu
Seismic changes are occurring in the dynamics of Ayawaso North, an Accra constituency with a ‘son of the soil’ – Manaf Mohammadu Osumanu Alidu – leading the charge.
He has literally taken the constituency by storm, something previously unthinkable in a place where the opposition considered an Accra ‘World Bank’.
Today, such a claim will be outlandish given Manaf’s popularity and level of defections to the NPP, some silent others loud.
His weekly ‘keep fit’ exercises draws massive crowd for which reason Manaf has cause to put on a permanent smile as he looks to December 7.
His campaign office is not far from his rival National Democratic Congress’ (NDC), both on the same stretch of the Nima Highway close to the Marwako food joint.
Supporters of the rival parties do not engage in vitriolic as it is the case in other constituencies.
When DAILY GUIDE paid an unscheduled trip to Manaf’s constituency office last Sunday, it was a beehive of activities, with the parliamentary candidate sandwiched between his lieutenants of activists discussing course matters pertaining to the campaign. It is a serious office and the impression I got upon leaving the place and the poster visibility in the constituency was that something positive would come the way of the NPP in this constituency.
Even the NDC has acknowledged in muffled tones the inroads the NPP man has made and continues to make in the constituency.
Manaf has to his credit seven languages including the major ones spoken in both Ayawaso East and North constituencies.
He was born in the Ayawaso North Constituency where he spent the early part of his life and obtained basic and senior high school education.
He also attended the Ghana Institute of Languages where he obtained a Proficiency Certificate in Arabic.
Alhaji Manaf proceeded to the Arabic Language Institute, King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to pursue further studies in Arabic Language and then the College of Arts, English Department at the same university where he obtained a Bachelors Degree in Translation.
At the Sydney College of English in Australia, he pursued an Advance English Communication course as well as a certificate in English for Examination Preparation. He then went to the Stotts College, Victoria, Australia, for a Diploma Certificate in Politics, covering Australian, British and American systems of governance as well as international politics at the United Nations.
He worked at the Semantic Language Centre, Tokyo-Japan from 1992 to 1994 and the Freedom Furniture in Sydney, Australia, between 1998 and 2004. From 2015 he has worked as head of administration at the Hajj Board.
Soft spoken Manaf told DAILY GUIDE that he was determined to ensure a positive change in the lives of, as he put it, “my people in the Ayawaso North Constituency.”
By A.R. Gomda