Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia over the weekend managed to unwittingly turn a funeral into a rally ground as he was mobbed unendingly by mourners at the funeral of the late father of Jeff Konadu, the Eastern Regional Chairman of the ruling New Patriotic Party at Kwahu-Obomeng.
Dr. Bawumia was accompanied by some 30 Members of Parliament led by the Majority Leader, Osei Kyei =Mensah-Bonsu, and Majority Chief Whip and MP for Nsawam/Adoagyiri, Frank Annoh Dompreh.
With the exclusion of the Eastern Regional Chairman, the other 15 Regional Chairmen were led by the Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, aka Chairman Wontumi, and their executives, constituency chairmen, some Ministers of state, and Chief Executive officers, among other government officials.
The crowd visibly went wild when the Vice President presence was announced.
Recently, the majority of the Members of Parliament, Regional Chairmen, and most CEOs in the government have decided to follow the Vice President to any event that he attended.
At the funeral grounds, the Vice President unexpectedly bumped into his main contender former Minister for Trade and Industry, Alan Kyerematen, accompanied by some former Members of Parliament, who was also ambushed by some party members.
However, Alan Cash and his team were stopped to let the Vice President greet the family and mourners at the grounds first.
This forced him to stand there for a long while waiting for the Vice President to be done with the exchanges of pleasantries with the mourners and the guests. But his (Alan) team members forced to break the protocol and started to greet the chiefs.
Alan after greeting the chiefs and the beavered family and donated an amount of GHC10, 000 left the funeral grounds.
The Vice President together with the Members of Parliament also donated an amount of GHC156,000 to the beavered family.
The Majority Chief Whip, Frank Annoh-Dompreh who spoke on behalf of the MPs said they (MPs) have declared their support for the Vice President, hence calling on every party member to join them, since the Vice is the winning candidate for the upcoming Party Presidential Primaries.
He said Bawumia’s signature policy since taking office, the digitalization agenda, has raised many eyebrows as it is out of the box.
Recently, his gold-for-oil policy is another unconventional idea he pulled out of a box to deal with a persistent problem.
Bawumia is expected to run for the NPP flagbearer position although he is yet to formally announce his intentions.
He is expected to face stiff competition from former Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen, Assin Central Member of Parliament, Kennedy Agyapong, and others.
Other aspiring Presidential hopefuls in the person of Assin Central MP, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, and Boakye Agyarko also stormed the funeral grounds.
The National Party Chairman, Stephen Ntim, General Secretary, Justin Kodua, and the National Organiser, Henry Boakye among others also attended the funeral.
BY Daniel Bampoe