A group calling itself Concerned Patriots of the New Patriotic Party in the Zebila Constituency of the Upper East Region says the party failed to retain the Zebila constituency parliamentary seat due to the inability of the Constituency Chairman to use the resources made available to him by the party for its intended purpose.
The group has accused the constituency Chairman, Patrick Ayaba and the constituency Secretary Cletus Ayariga for what they described as “skirt and blouse” campaign aimed at causing the defeat of the NPP Parliamentary candidate, Frank Fuseini Adongo, who is also the Deputy Upper East Regional Minister.
Below is the full press release.
PRESS CONFERENCE BY CONCERNED PATRIOTS OF THE NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY, ZEBILLA CONSTITUENCY, CALLING FOR DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS AGAINST SOME CONSTITUENCY EXECUTIVES AND SOME KEY PARTY MEMBERS FOR THEIR MISCONDUCT IN THE RUN UP TO THE 2020 GENERAL ELECTIONS
Our friends from the media, ladies and gentlemen, all protocol observed.
We have invited you here today, December 22, 2020 in that you aid us convey the concerns of the CONCERNED PATRIOTS of Zebilla Constituency in the Upper East Region to the good people of Ghana and the world as a whole, regarding the 2020 general elections.
We, first of all, wish to use this forum to congratulate His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for his gargantuan victory in the aforementioned general elections. In fact, Your Excellency, we cannot agree more with the over 51% of the Ghanaian Electorate, who thought you deserve “4more2domore”. Your Excellency, may God continue to guide and protect your administration in the entire process of governance, for the ‘Battle remains the Lord’s’. We also congratulate all parliamentarians elect and all stakeholders who played diverse roles to ensure the elections were generally transparent, free and fair.
CONCERNS
- ABYSMAL PERFORMANCE OF THE PARTY IN THE JUST ENDED GENRRAL ELECTIONS IN THE ZEBILLA CONSTITUENCY
Ladies and gentlemen, It’s disheartening to note that NPP as a party, in the Zebilla Constituency witnessed its most embarrassing defeat ever, in both presidential and parliamentary, in the 2020 general elections, under the watch of Mr. Patrick Ayaba as Chairman and Mr. Cletus Ayariga as Secretary. Ladies and gentlemen, you would agree with us that every party Chairman and Secretary are figuratively the party’s ‘head’ and ‘heart’ respectively, if these two fail to function well, retrogression surely sets in, and Zebilla Constituency has rapidly retrogressed under the watch of these two gentlemen. As gentle as they are, we humbly call on them to resign honourably, since they have not lived up to expectation.
Ladies and gentlemen we are however, not certain as to whether the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP’s) abysmal performance in the Zebilla Constituency regarding the just ended elections, under the watch of Mr. Patrick Ayaba (Chairman) and Mr. Cletus Ayariga (Secretary) was due to gross incompetence or a calculated attempt to get back at the party for not appointing one of them as the District Chief Executive for the Bawku West District in 2017 as in the grapevine, since they were supposedly the most qualified and deserved amongst the then contestants. In either case, they should take back seats since they have failed woefully to grow the party in the Constituency as promised.
- MISCONDUCT OF SOME KEY PARTY STAKEHOLDERS IN THE CONSTITUENCY
Ladies and gentlemen, though the NPP’s Constitution demands that Party Executives remain neutral during parliamentary primaries, it was not the case in the Zebilla Constituency. Most Executives fragrantly disregarded the said rule with impunity under the watch of Mr. Patrick Ayaba and Mr Cletus Ayariga. The reason why they could not crack the whip is simple, because both allegedly campaigned for Dr. Kingsley Krugu who lost to Hon. Frank Fuseini Adongo. In their open support for their candidate, Mr. Patrick Ayaba is alleged to have warned the 34 Electoral Area Coordinators in one of their meetings not to make a mistake to support Hon. Frank Fuseini, as he not ready to work with him any longer. This allegation seems real as Mr. Patrick’s right hand man, Mr. Awinbugri, the immediate past 1st Vice Chairman and a Patron of the party was caught on tape telling a group of people at the Teshie electoral area not to vote for Hon. Fuseini. He was emphatic that, his boss Mr. Patrick Ayaba wanted them to actually vote against Hon. Fuseini, that the electorate should ignore Mr. Ayaba’s public campaigns for Fuseini. He said it was just to deceive the public and the party in order to clinch his chairmanship position. In his own words, he said,Patrick public campaigns for Hon. Fuseini was an “Awaam”.
It saddens our hearts for the inability to increase the presidential votes and at the same time retain the seat in order to contribute to majority in parliament, as we set out to do before the elections. It was due to wickedness, vindictiveness, greed, selfishness and misconduct of some key constituency executives; the Chairman (Mr. Patrick Ayaba), the Secretary (Mr. Cletus Ayariga) and their Cohorts (Dr. John Kingsley Krugu, Mr. Desmond Bugbilla just to mention a few).
Some constituency executives and some key members of the party in the constituency led by the constituency chairman, the secretary and their cohorts (Dr. John Kingsley Krugu and Mr. Desmond Bugbilla to mention a few) vigorously campaigned for skirt and blouse voting. The actions, utterances, and behaviour clearly showed their intentions to defeat the party’s parliamentary candidate and reduce the presidential vote margin at all cost. This is a clear breach of oath of office and a betrayal of party loyalty and allegiance. This is classical misconduct of a party officer and members of a political party.
Chairman Patrick Ayaba, the secretary and their cohorts (John Kingsley Krugu, Desmond Bugbilla, Awin Bugre who is a party elder just to mention a few) for their self-seeking interest worked against the party and parliamentary candidate.
Ladies and gentlemen!
This is how it happened;
- When Hon. Victoria Ayamba was given the DCE position, Mr. Patrick Ayaba felt the DCE was meant for him.
- The current chairman, then a party member disagreed with the president’s nomination of the DCE. Then organized his supporters to vandalize the offices of the District Assembly and that of the party office in the constituency.
- He accused the former constituency chairman, Alhaji Issah Seidu, and the Member of Parliament for supporting Hon. Victoria Ayamba and vowed ever since to bring down the member of parliament of the party.
- He succeeded in taking the chairmanship from Issah Seidu but failed in his several attempts to get the DCE out and when he tried to replace Frank Fuseini Adongo with John kingsly Krugu in the parliamentary primaries, they formed a clique to sabotage the MP and thus, campaigned against the MP.
- When they failed to push John krugu through the primaries, they formed a cabal to work against Fuseini and the party. The National and Regional executives received several reports about this.
- Several reconciliation talks were held, they agreed but still with an intention to sabotage.
- Finally, a campaign team was formed to manage the campaign but the Patrick led executives refused to work with the campaign team and did everything alone. They had their own plans to themselves but like the sun, it shall surely shine which eminently showed its ugliest head in the abysmal elections performance.
- The campaign team set up a committee to come out with a campaign plan which they used three working days to put together a comprehensive strategy for winning the elections. The executives refused to used it
- All resources meant for the campaign was virtually shared among only the constituency executives without the involvement of other members of the campaign team and yet they did not do any campaign apart from the general electoral area meetings which the MP funded. All the executives received motor bikes and others got two each. Some even sold theirs before the Election Day, so that they can blame the MP for their selfish gains.
- They used some of the electoral area coordinators and polling station executives to preach skirt and blouse kind of voting which never materialized, for the party’s parliamentary candidate had more votes than the presidential, thus the party’s parliamentary candidate garnered, 15568 votes, while the party’s presidential candidate garnered, 15256 votes.
- None of these constituency executives organized a single campaign meeting in their electoral areas or even within the polling stations they voted. As a result, none of them were able to win their polling stations.
- Indeed NPP performed too poorly this time than ever in their respective polling stations. In the chairman’s polling station for instance, the party’s parliamentary candidate got only,43 votes and Cletus, the opposition candidate got over 300 votes yet he the constituency party chairman, was the custodian of all the party’s sent resources. It’s laughable he is busily lobbying to be the next DCE with 78 presidential votes.
- The night before Election Day, the chairman, the secretary and their cohorts went round house to house and influenced people to vote skirt and blouse, using NPP resources to work against the party, of which we have evidence of them on secret recordings to be made available.
Ladies and gentlemen of the media
Based on these and many more that we will share with whoever is interested, we are of the view that these executives and their cohorts are cause and main reasons for the poor performance of the party; significant reduction in the presidential votes and the loss of the seat. They therefore have lost their mandate since they worked against their own party.
The honorable thing for them to do is to resign since they have no sympathy for NPP, or else the party should sanction them.
The following are the result of the polling stations of some of the executives and other personalities who came home and supported negatively in the campaign.
NAME POSITION PARLIAMENTARY PRESIDENTIAL
- AYABA PATRICK CONSTITUENCY CHAIRMAN 43 out of 330 78 out of 326
- AYARIGA CLETUS CONSTITUENCY SECRETARY 55 out of 325 75 out of 318
- JOHN KRUGU KINGSLEY DEFEATED PARLIAMENTARY ASPIRANT 27 out of 169 57 out of 159
- DESMOND BUGBILLA FORMER DCE 130 out of 457 164 out of 453
Ladies and gentlemen of the media,
Based on all these and the facts that, Mr. Awinbugre from Teshie, the immediate past Constituency First Vice Chairman of the Party and a current patron of the party was caught in a leaked tape have campaigned against the party, Mr. Dan Lambert, Aramkoliga electoral area coordinator who actually voted for the NDC candidate and took a picture of it and was apprehended by the police and Mr. Benjamin Abore also an electoral area coordinator from Teshie who doubles as a personal secretary to the constituency Chairman who was busily seen on Social media campaigning for the NDC candidate are all walking and celebrating that the party lost, yet the Constituency Executives saw nothing wrong with their misconduct and breach of oath of office.
We are clear in our minds that, the leadership of the party in the constituency put the party into this state and we the concerned patriots will not sit down unconcern for these self-centered persons to destroy our party. The chairman (Mr. Patrick Ayaba) the secretary (Mr. Cletus Ayariga) and their cohorts must resign or should be sanctioned immediately.
Ladies and gentlemen
The constituency secretary just returned from Accra, where he went to be assisted by Mr. Desmond Bugbilla to buy a car from the campaign funds they fraudulently diverted.
He also collected huge sums of cash from Mr Apidago Tanimu Lapakiba with the pretense of working to retain the party and MP.
We wish to state here clearly that the party should keep an eye on the activities of the constituency chairman (Mr. Ayaba Patrick), the Secretary (Mr.Cletus Ayariga) and their cohorts. Their ill motives are beyond the constituency. They are nursing some plans of disunity that are not healthy for us as a party. We therefore, urge the president and his team not to reward people who have worked against the party.
Long live Ghana
Long live NPP
Long live Zebilla constituency
Thank you.
Story By: Samuel Ayamah
