Even Bawumia’s Mother Didn’t Vote For Us
Honourable Paul Collins
Appiah-Ofori, the controversial New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for
Asikuma-Odoben-Brakwa in the Central Region has provided insight
into the uphill task facing the opposition NPP in its bid to
wrestle power from the ruling National Democratic Congress
(NDC).
In an interview on Asempa FM detailing his opposition to the
selection of Dr Mahmud Bawumia as NPP’s running mate, Appiah-Ofori
made startling revelations about the spectacular failure of Bawumia
to not only get his town folks to vote for the NPP, but to get
members of his own family, including his biological mother, to give
him the vote.
In the view of Appiah-Ofori, Bawumia has a duty to ensure
that members of his family vote for him, instead of sitting on the
fence while they vote for the NDC.
According to him, despite the fact that the NPP was in power
in 2008, Dr Bawumia failed in getting his own mother, siblings and
relatives to endorse the NPP in the last elections and has to now
work hard on overturning those spectacular minuses.
“Let’s make sure he gets his own mother to vote for him. His
mother is NDC and Women’s Organiser for Bawumia’s hometown. His
brother is NDC and Ambassador to Burkina Faso. His other relative
is the DCE for that area. Another sibling is head of the Youth
Employment (NYEP) and his sister is head of the School Feeding
Programme. And all of them are not
NPP members”, he revealed.
Though he did not add, the late father of Dr Bawumia was also
a key PNDC/NDC functionary, having served in various advisory
capacities to former President Rawlings.
Appiah-Ofori advised that Bawumia “do house to house, village
to village” to win his hometown votes and to succeed in the
difficult task of convincing his own family members to rethink
their positions and vote against the NDC.
“In 2008, we were in power. The regional ministers belonged
to the NPP. The District Chief executives were NPP. Yet we were
unable to win. If Bawumia could not help us to even win his home constituency, what else do
I need to say” he said.
“Right now as I see it, the NDC is in power. The President
and Vice President are both NDC members. Almost all the sitting MPs
(in Bawumia’s home region) are NDC members. We have a herculean
task”, he noted, in the interview which was granted the day Akufo
Addo unveiled Bawumia as his running mate few weeks
ago.
Appiah-Ofori was one of those people who advised that Bawumia
he posted to spend all his time in the North to win votes for the
party.
Insisting that he has no personal grudge against Bawumia nor
is he denigrating him, he insisted that for a man aspiring to
become a top member of the party, it is essential that at least his
family members support him.
In his view, though he expects Bawumia to do little in
helping the ticket, he has no alternative than to work for him and
the party once the flagbearer had selected him.
He explain his opposition to the choice of Bawumia by
explaining that former President Kufuor’s choice of the late Aliu
Mahama was rewarded by the northern regions because Aliu did a lot
of work to be recognized in the north and to help the opposition
come to power.
