The Regent of Katamanso, Nii Laryea Afotey Agbo, has denied support for any particular political party or candidate in the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections in December 2020.
“I’m there for everybody; I don’t have a favourite. I don’t have an enemy and I don’t have a brother for being in this position,” the politician-turned chief, who has held the seat for the NDC many years, said last Thursday when Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia called on him at his palace.
Dr. Bawumia was at the Katamanso palace to inform the chiefs and elders about his campaign activities and also introduce the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) Parliamentary Candidate for the area, Hopeson Yaovi Adorye, to them.
In a brief reward, however, Lion, as Afotey Agbo is affectionately called, said “you all know I’m the Member of Parliament and at the same time the regent. I’m trying to stay the course of my position as regent. If not for that, I would have been sitting in a pickup going round campaigning.”
But since the campaign began and even though a strong NDC, he indicated that “I’ve not set foot anywhere and that I’ve been observing events from afar.”
He stressed the need for all Ghanaians to live in peace and not allow politics which is a game to divide or make them enemies, saying “it is the right of every Ghanaian to belong to a political party of his or her choice. Therefore, we must see each other as brothers and sisters; and if you can do that as an individual, you will enjoy life and you will enjoy the leadership of everybody.”
He talked of the cordial relations that exist between him and some key and influential members of the NPP even though he is a known NDC, including the Greater Accra Regional Chairman of the party, Divine Agorhum, who he said was his classmate at Teshie Salem.
He also considered the party’s parliamentary candidate Hopeson Adorye his son and the Mayor of Accra, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, a very good friend.
“If something is going wrong and you need to advise, you advise; you don’t need to be insulting people and be telling people things that you are not supposed to say. As I speak to you, NDC is not in government but I’m still okay; nobody is harassing me; nobody is chasing me up. The police, when I see them, they give me respect…when I was in office, I gave them the needed respect and I worked with them as my own,” he noted.
Interestingly, Afotey Agbo, who prides himself as being a Member of Parliament for Kpone-Katamanso for the past 16 years and having massive support, was literally begging the Vice-President to help finish an uncompleted Teacher Training College and a secondary school project which they started.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu