Anti-Asomah-Cheremeh chiefs are NDC – B/A NPP

The nomination of Brong Ahafo Regional Minister-designate Kwaku Asomah-Cheremeh will hold, despite opposition to his appointment by the Sunyani Traditional Council, Kwame Baffoe, the governing New Patriotic Party’s regional Youth Organiser has sworn.

On Thursday, 26 January, a day after President Akufo-Addo had named Mr Asomah-Cheremeh as Brong Ahafo Regional Minister-designate, the traditional body organised a press conference rejecting the decision, accusing the nominee of being disrespectful by once organising a press conference to lampoon traditional rulers in the area.

They added that he also ignored several invitations extended to him by the council over certain allegations and comments he had made about the chiefs.

But Mr Baffoe, speaking with Nana Ama Osei-Tutu on Accra News on Thursday, called the bluff of the chiefs, saying: “What Nananom at Sunyani have said, let me state clearly that we in the NPP have put up a wall around us; we are not listening to anything [they have said]. They must rather come out and apologise for the comments they have made.”

The young politician, also known as Abronye DCE, said the chiefs needed to bear in mind that Mr Asomah-Cheremeh had been nominated to be a Regional Minister, rather than “Sunyani Minister”, and questioned the council’s locus to kick against a nominee of the president given it is “one of the youngest traditional councils” in the country which only got established in 1996 after wrongfully seceding from the Odomase Traditional Council under the aegis of then-President Rawlings’ government.

According to him, Krontihene Nana Bofotia Boa Amponsem, the chief who addressed Thursday’s press conference, himself was a “government appointee” and “NDC card-bearing member” who got employed as a lecturer at the Sunyani Polytechnic because of his association with the erstwhile Mahama government while the Sunyanimanhene was made Lands Commission chairman by the former government.

“Are they the ones to tell us what to do? ...What we said earlier is what we will keep saying: Kwaku Asomah[-Cheremeh] will be regional minister today, tomorrow, every day. Whoever disagrees can go with the Sunyani Traditional Council and join another region. That is their own problem,” he stated.