Asokwa NPP rubbishes Kofi Jumah’s rigging claims

Members of the Asokwa Constituency branch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) have vehemently opposed claims by former Member of Parliament (MP) Maxwell Kofi Jumah that the recently held parliamentary primary was rigged in favour of the incumbent Patricia Appiah-Agyei.

Madam Appiah-Agyei polled an overwhelming 326 of the total valid votes cast as against Mr Jumah’s 158 votes.

Officials of the Electoral Commission who supervised the primary in that constituency on June 13 declared sitting MP Madam Appiah-Agyei as winner of the elections.

Kofi Jumah who was arrested by the police for breaching the peace and causing damage to electoral materials on the day of elections has since accused party executives of conniving with EC officials to massage electoral figures to aid his sole competitor.

Consequently, he has petitioned the national executives for the election to be re-run in the constituency.

But in a swift rebuttal, Edmund Kyei, the party's Communication Director in the constituency, labelled Kofi Jumah’s allegations as unwarranted and a desperate attempt to malign the sitting MP, whom he added, won on “fair grounds”.

“The election was organized in a free and fair manner and for a whole former MP (Kofi Jumah) to make such an unfounded allegation is unfortunate.

“We voted Kofi Jumah in the past and now we think that it is Madam Appiah-Agyei who can offer us good representation in parliament, so for him to think that delegates were bribed, to say the least, is absurd,” Edmund told GhanaWeb in a telephone interview.

Mr Kyei added that Kofi Jumah’s assertion that Mr KK Sarpong, husband of Madam Appiah-Agyei partook in the rigging process is also false and “the figment of his imagination”.

“Kofi Jumah is just a bad loser! He has to concede that he has lost to a better candidate and go back to correct his blunders and come back,” Mr Kyei charged.