Nii Noi Nortey
Former NPP Chairman for the Korle Klottey Constituency in the Greater Accra Region, Valentino Nii Noi Nortey, has presented clean-up tools and cash to aspiring Assembly Members in the Korle Klottey Municipality ahead of the upcoming District Assembly elections.
At a colourful ceremony organised at Osu and Asylum Down on Monday and Tuesday respectively, Nii Noi Nortey, who is also aspiring to be the NPP 2024 parliamentary candidate, donated wheelbarrows, rakes, shovels, campaign posters and cash to all eleven aspiring Assembly Members.
The eleven aspiring members represent Osu North, Osu South, Ringway, Kinkawe and Alata electoral areas. The rest are; Adabraka Official Town, Adabraka North, Tudu North, Tudu South, Asylum Down, and Odawna Sahara electoral areas. In all, about one thousand polling station officers attended both presentation ceremonies.
Addressing them, Nii Noi Nortey charged the enthusiastic officers of the party to prioritise the upcoming District Assembly elections as the first step of ensuring victory for the ruling party in the 2024 general elections. He bemoaned internal bickering, and called on the executives to close their ranks, and work assiduously to achieve this feat.
According to him, election is a process, and not an event, and therefore it was incumbent on the executives to work extra hard for the NPP to regain its strength at the local level.
“Even though we acknowledge the fact that District Assembly elections are non-partisan on paper, we in the NPP will do ourselves a great disservice if we don’t start canvassing support for aspirants who have shown faith with our party over the years. It will interest you to know that the current NDC Constituency Chairman and NDC Constituency Youth Organiser are the Assembly Member candidates for Osu North and Osu South respectively,” he said.
“How then does anybody convince me or you that assembly elections are non-partisan?” he quizzed, adding that, “It’s about time you [polling station executives] embarked on a vigorous retail campaign to help our people. Move from home to home, lorry station to lorry stations, market centres, football parks, ghettos etc.
“We need to capture all the eleven electoral seats so that our communities can have a fair share of developmental projects being executed by the Municipal Assembly.”
Nii Noi Nortey also tasked the Assembly Member aspirants to conduct need assessment in their respective areas, and present to him specific projects to be fully funded by his NGO, the Nii Noi Nortey Foundation. He also pledged to give each of the eleven electoral areas some prizes should they win the October 3, 2023 District Assembly elections.
Nii Noi Nortey reiterated his commitment to peace, unity and development of the constituency, and thus called on all party officers to eschew divisive tendencies, forge ahead in unity, and work extra hard to make the New Patriotic Party (NPP) very attractive in the constituency as a sign of readiness for the 2024 general elections.
Taking his turn, the Presiding Member for the Korle Klottey Municipal Assembly, Nana Ebo Mensah, expressed worry on the number of seats pro-NPP Assembly Members have in the constituency as against the NDC, and called on the polling executives to work hard to cause a change.
According to him, out of the 11 electoral areas, the NDC currently occupies eight seats as against three by the NPP, a situation he described as “unfortunate.”
Present at the ceremony were Korle Klottey Constituency Executives, Electoral Area Coordinators, Polling Station Officers, staff of the Nii Noi Nortey Foundation among others.