The demonstrators with their placcards
Some New Patriotic Party (NPP) members in the Tatale Constituency have threatened to vote ‘skirt and blouse’ (vote for the party’s flagbearer and sideline the parliamentary candidate) – should the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, James Cecil Yanwube, who was defeated at the primary – fail to contest as an independent candidate.
A group calling itself ‘Friends of James Cecil Yanwube’ stated that after the 2015 NPP primary, the MP petitioned the regional and the constituency executives about the occurrences during the election, but to no avail, saying that that gave them the impression that the primary was masterminded by some constituency and regional executives of the party.
Over 200 supporters demonstrated through the streets of Tatale holding placards with inscriptions like ‘We want Janwube back,’ James listen to our cry’ and Yanwube must come back.’
According to them, findings revealed that the candidate-elect, Mr. Thomas Mbomba, is aligned to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) because he contested during the 2008 primary on the ticket of the NDC at the Ejura Constituency in the Ashanti Region.
They alleged that he never voted in the Tatale/Sanguli Constituency and never participated in any campaign activities in the constituency as stated in Article 11(4) of the NPP constitution.
The group accused Mr. Thomas Mbomba of flouting the party’s constitutional provisions by camping the delegates the day before the primary and subsequently bused them the following morning to the polling centre and prevailed on them to swear an oath that they would vote for him.
Speaking to DAILY GUIDE, the secretary of the group, Npong Kpante Wilfred, said they had realized that the leadership of the party – both at the constituency and the regional levels – had not lived up to expectation.
According to him, several discussions with Mr James C. Yanwube to come down to contest as an independent candidate had failed with the reason that it would be a breach of the party’s constitution.
“We want to ask, where was the constitution when an outsider and a non-member of the constituency with less than four years in the party, schemed to get his way through the vetting?” the secretary queried.
He indicated that considering the outcry of the constituents and stalled projects initiated by James, the ‘Friends of James Cecil Yanwube’ would prevail on him to contest for the 2016 parliamentary election as an independent candidate.
The group appealed to all and sundry that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is the only man who can give Ghanaians economic freedom and good governance and so must be voted for on December 7.
FROM Eric Kombat, Tatale