A row has erupted in the Subin Constituency of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as some 90 polling station executives and electoral area coordinators said they had been removed from their posts against their will by constituency executives acting on the instructions of the Member of Parliament (MP), Eugene Boakye.
Some electoral area coordinators and polling station executives have been suspended indefinitely by the party for allegedly meeting certain MP aspirants, who are considered to have peaked ahead of time.
In letters written and signed by the constituency secretary, Akuamoah Boateng, the party said the decisions to suspend the offending members from their positions were carried out at a constituency executive meeting held on Friday, June 29, 2018.
One of the letters said: “It came to the leadership’s attention that certain prospective parliamentary aspirants are peaking before time and in the process creating division and factionalism within the constituency.”
The letter continued that a firm decision has been taken that any party member – be it polling station executive, electoral area coordinator or constituency officer – who was found to have held a meeting with a prospective aspirant or aided and abetted their campaigns before the opening of nominations would be dealt with, hence the suspension.
But the aggrieved NPP members claim that they are victims of a bullying culture of the worst kind for their previous allegiance and support for the former MP, Isaac Osei.
Addressing a press conference in Kumasi at the weekend, spokesman of the suspended NPP executive members, Isaac Nimako, rejected the allegations against him and his colleagues, insisting that he was particularly suspended for stating that he could no longer attend constituency meetings in the house of the MP at Esereso in the Bosomtwi Constituency.
According to him, some of his colleagues “have had no details about the complaint about the said meetings with prospective MP aspirants,” he stated.
Mr Nimako said many of the party executives suspended were members of Villey Acheampong Fan Club of Subin Constituency, and that they were invited to a meeting to plan for Luv FM’s blood donation programme that was scheduled to come off on August 25, 2018.
The spokesman asserted that there was no discussion about any political issue or party at that particular meeting apart from the blood donation exercise, and that their suspensions were borne out of malice and hatred.
He said all the affected members, except him, who is an electoral area coordinator, were invited by the constituency’s disciplinary committee before they were handed with the suspension letters delivered by their various coordinators.
They appealed to the Regional and National executives to intervene as the actions and inactions of the constituency executives and the MP pose potential threat to the party’s electoral fortunes in the longer term for the next general election.
Some of the suspended members, who were at the press conference, include Yaa Baby (Abrotia polling station women’s organiser), Augustine Kwame Agyei (Dadiesoaba polling station organiser), Bright Opoku (Royal Park polling station chairman), and Esi Takyiwaa (Fante New Town women’s organiser).
The rest are Lucy Donkor of Railways polling station, Beatrice Donko of Nsuase polling station, Charity Kusi, Esther Akomaa, Afia Agyeiwaa Boateng, Gifty Baidoo and Vida Adjei.
From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi