Anthony Fofie, Emmanuel Jalulah Khajal , Francis Odenke Ntem
Members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Krachi West Constituency of the Oti region who picked nominations forms to contest for the party’s Parliamentary candidate for the area have been disqualified.
The three aspirants, Anthony Fofie, Emmanuel Jalulah Khajal and Francis Odenke Ntem were disqualified because they failed to submit their forms at close of nominations, which was on August 3, 2019.
Tony Fofie is reported to be UK based, while Francis is a businessman. Jalulah who is into social work is alleged to have contested in the 2016 elections as an independent candidate after the opposition NDC then denied him opportunity to contest the incumbent MP, Helen Ntoso in the primaries.
Their disqualification was contained in a report issued and jointly signed by the party’s Constituency Chairman, Douglas Amanfo, Secretary Peter Krah and the Chairman of the Election Committee, J.B Donkor.
The report said the three have also not given any reason for missing the deadline. “We wish to say without any reservation that none of the three aspirants have written, stating the reason(s) why they were not able to file their nomination forms,” it explained.
In an interview with DAILY GUIDE, the Constituency Secretary, Peter Krah said they have notified the national office of the party and pleaded for some extension.
Peter said although they initially did not want to give second chances to the contestants, they have rescinded that decision and instead pleaded that the extension should give both the existing contestants and new ones a chance to pick and file nominations.
He said they are hopeful that the national executives would grant the extension so they can also conduct vetting and subsequently, voting.
Meanwhile, some key members of the party have lamented about the dwindling fortunes of the party in the area. The duo who wanted to remain anonymous quizzed that, “Is it not strange that when we were in opposition we had four contestants and now that we are in power we have three contestants who cannot file their nominations?”
They also queried why the people are not rooting for the District Chief Executive, Douglas Osei-Nti like in the case of other constituencies in the region. They noted that the nature of apathy could be attributed to the reluctance of diehard party members to contest the position.
They recounted the recent incident where some party youth went to lock the office of the DCE, Osei-Nti and allegedly manhandled him for what they claimed was underperformance on his part.
“The agitation of the party youth at the Assembly office are all signs on the wall, but our leaders have kept a blind eye,” they alleged.
They also lamented that the interest in the party has dwindled, that persons known to be NDC have access to pick forms to contest in an NPP primaries.
The NPP has set September 28, 2019, as date on which to hold elections in ‘orphan constituencies’ (Constituencies without NPP sitting MPs).
From Fred Duodu, Ho (k.duodu@yahoo.com)