The Member of Parliament (MP) for Kwadaso, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto has supported calls for the Minority leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu to contest unopposed in the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Parliamentary primaries.
He said it is embarrassing that the party has left Mensah Bonsu to his fate to fight to maintain his position as the MP for Suame despite being an efficient leader of the Minority in Parliament.
[contextly_sidebar id=”SxOzCtBMnWPwHO94bQ5D3v52VeEgxdFM”]“I’m very embarrassed for him to be speaking for himself. We should be speaking for him!” he fumed.
Kyei Mensah Bosnu has questioned why the leadership of the NPP is no longer preventing other party members from contesting sitting MPs who hold positions in Parliament.
According to him, in 2000 and 2004, the then President John Kufuor intervened on behalf of J.H. Mensah and Felix Owusu Agyapong and has therefore asked the current leadership to formulate a policy which will bar any party member from challenging him in the party’s primaries.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, Dr. Afriyie Akoto argued that Mensah Bonsu does not deserve this kind of treatment from the party since it is sending the “wrong signal” to Ghanaians.
He remarked that the Minority leader has great amount of respect from both sides of the House including the Speaker and “his knowledge is immense and his performance is well above what anybody will expect a leader in Parliament to be.”
Check the numbers
The Kwadaso law maker acknowledged that he came to Parliament as a result of defeating an incumbent MP therefore; it will be “very pretentious of me to say that now that I am in, they should lock the doors.”
He disclosed that presently, about six people are contesting the NPP primaries in his constituency “but that wasn’t the case three primaries ago” adding this new trend is not favouring the party.
The trend according to him is that the number of people who are contesting various positions in the party and also vying to become MPs of the ticket of the NPP “are exploding and they are exploding to the disadvantage of the party, particularly in our strongholds in the Ashanti, Eastern Region and most parts of Brong Ahafo Region.”
This, he argued, “is not good for anyone for this party to entertain an endless list of numbers contesting in primaries, particularly in your stronghold where it’s likely to lead to all kinds of negative influences when the campaign itself start for the presidential.”
Dr. Afriyie Akoto There therefore recommended that there “shouldn’t be a blanket check; there should be some limit and the numbers should be managed.”
“There should be some form of management. In all the great parties of the world, it doesn’t work like that…particularly when it is affecting some of the most diligent stalwarts of the party in Parliament like Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu.”
By: Efua Idan Osam/citifmonline.com/Ghana
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