Crisis in Cape Coast NPP deepens

- CHURCHER GOES BONKERS
Cape Coast, Nov 16, Chronicle -- The battling MP for Cape Coast, Ms. Christine Churcher took her fight with the sidelined Cape Coast constituency executive and supporters to a new low when she and her body guard simultaneously ordered that a car with registration number (withheld) should be intercepted and crashed during a fevered campaign rally at Cape Coast last week.

Almost immediately, groups of goons mounted a search-and-destroy mission that very Sunday after the rally.

By the time some sympathisers reached the targeted group to tip them off the danger they were in, the group was rather campaigning for Mr. J.A. Kufuor in the villages. They had posters of Christine Churcher herself and the President plastered all over the campaign vehicle. The vehicle was given out by Mr. Coleman, one of the elders of the party involved in patching the growing rift in Cape Coast.

Alarmed at this threat to their lives, the campaigning group, led by the young Buckman, who nearly floored Christie, removed the posters, negotiated the back streets and reached the town centre where they returned the campaign vehicle. It was learnt that Churcher?s close buddy called ?Dagomba?, stumbled upon the campaigning group rooting for Christie and was so elated that he tipped the driver ?40, 000.

For the first time, the clearly frightened youthful challenger, Buckman, 30, an assemblyman for the Bakaano area, openly confirmed the story, and expressed shock at the way Churcher had now pitched her campaign.

?My father sent for me, he is worried for my life?he heard about it? I am surprised she could go to this extent.?

Buckman confirmed also that he had heard that the MP?s bodyguard even went to the extent of alleging that he and Odro, the NDC parliamentary candidate were buying votes in the villages ??How can they impute such criminality against me??

Buckman, the rising star, who challenged Churcher at the primaries, has a huge local following.

Chronicle?s Western Regional correspondent, Emmanuel Akli conferred with the constituency secretary, Mr. J.D. Sam who noted that he was not personally present but was at a meeting at the Regional Office to sort the threat allegation out, adding that the information was then confirmed by the regional secretary Mr. Albert Essuman to the regional chairman, Professor Ghartey when he inquired about it..

Essuman himself was testy when reached on the phone: ?The matter is not for your consumption. I won?t comment, call the MP herself,? he hollered. By 7.30 pm last night, Mr. Asamoah Boateng who was campaigning at Mfantsiman West, raced to Cape Coast to try and fix the problem. He persuaded six of the sidelined executives to a meeting with the only man who is still retained by Churcher, Mr. Sabah, the chairman, but he failed to turn up, so Asamoah Boateng left without resolving the issue.

Buckman confirmed that he had called the National Chairman, Harruna Esseku to inform him, and he said he assured him that he would inform the President who, Chronicle heard, had virtually given up on Cape Coast.