The January 27, 2024 New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary primaries for the six constituencies in the Akyemansa block of the Eastern Region, will be the keenest, very interesting and full of surprises.
The reason is that for the first time since the inception of the 4th Republic, as many as 13 NPP stalwarts have filed their nominations to challenge the six incumbent Members of Parliament (MPs) who are seeking re-election.
The hottest of the competition will be held at Akyem Swedru where the Controller and Accountant General, Kwasi Kwaning-Bosompem and a Tema based private businessman, Jerome Kwame Okyere Akordor will sort things out with the incumbent MP, Kennedy Osei Nyarko.
Even though Mr Kwaning-Bosompem did not personally file his nomination last Saturday, Graphic Online’s Samuel Kyei-Boateng reports that the huge crowd that followed his representative, Nana Ofosu Afrifah, demonstrated that he was a force to reckon with.
The third candidate for Akyem Swedru, Jerome Akordor, who also filed his nomination that very day, also attracted a large crowd led by 20 motorbikes and a fleet of vehicles.
Three candidates including Ghana’s High Commissioner to South Africa, Charles Asuoko Owiredu, Frank Mireku, an Accra based businessman and a former Abirem Constituency Secretary of the NPP, and Daniel Kwadwo Afrifah, a Kumasi based businessman, filed their nominations in a fanfare at New Abirem last Friday to challenge the incumbent legislator, John Osei Frimpong.
Mr Osei Frimpong also filed his nomination last Sunday followed by a large number of NPP supporters including many of the delegates.
Speaking to the press later, Mr Osei Frimpong stressed that the physical development projects he had provided for the constituency including the tarring of the New Abirem-Nkawkaw and New Abirem-Akyem Ofoase main roads, as well as the tarring of some of the towns streets, would help him to retain his parliamentary seat.
Another hot contest would be held at Akyem Ofoase where two candidates are vying with the MP for Ofoase-Ayirebi, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who is also the Minister of Information.
They are Eric Owusu-Mensah, the immediate Deputy Clerk of Ghana’s Parliament and Maxwell Osei Gyamerah, a staff of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) in Accra.
Addressing the press after filing his nomination, Mr Oppong Nkrumah urged the delegates who were among the gigantic crowd to retain him as their legislator to continue the good work he had done for the constituency and to also contribute his quota towards the breaking of the eight year electoral jinx.
He promised that he and his supporters would abide by the NPP’s rules and regulations on elections to ensure peaceful and successful polls.
Filing his nomination, Mr Owusu-Mensah thanked the committee members and gave the assurance that he and his campaign team would conduct peaceful campaign by telling the delegates what he had done for the party and his vision for the constituency devoid of insults and character assassination, and urged the other contestants to do same.
He, however, complained bitterly about the way the constituency executives treated him by not telling the party members the financial and material assistance he had given to the party for campaigns but eventually shared the items among themselves, and urged them not to repeat that practice again.
In the Akyem Achiase constituency, four candidates including a female, Benedicta Adom Biamah, have filed their nominations with the aim of ousting the incumbent MP, Kofi Ahenkorah Marfo.
The rest are George Niako aka Bulk Money, a Tema based engineer, Samuel Okyere Donkor and Emmanuel Kwabena Brako.
It seems the constituency executives are at loggerheads with the legislator, Mr Ahenkorah Marfo as he was denied a nomination form and he had to travel all the way to Koforidua to collect his firm at the Eastern Regional Secretariat of the NPP.
There was also drama at Akyem Akroso, the capital of the Asene-Manso-Akroso constituency as the executives refused to give Alex Owusu Agyei, who is challenging  the incumbent MP, George Kwame Aboagye a nomination form.
When Mr Owusu Agyei and his entourage reached the constituency NPP office around 9.30 a.m. on December 20, 2023 to buy the nomination form, there wasn’t no member of the constituency executives or any member of the five election committee present.
A lady who is an office clerk told them that only three nomination forms were given to her and they had all been collected by aspiring parliamentary candidates.
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