A six page strongly worded petition from the Ejumako-Enyan-Essiam constituency of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to the National Chairman of the party, Mr. Peter Mac Manu, has made startling revelations about declarations of the Member of Parliament for the area, Hon. Isaac Edumadze’s intention of shifting camp to the Convention People’s Party (CPP) ahead of next year’s general elections.
According to the petition, dated June 6, 2007, Hon. Edumadze made his intentions clear when he met some polling station chairmen over a purported removal of constituency executives during which meeting he was alleged to have told the polling station officers that the Central Region is of CPP descent and that he himself was a CPP faithful.
“He incited those present against NPP by telling them that the people of Central Region are of CPP descent, that he himself is a CPP faithful just like the people in the constituency, so therefore if the Executives failed to declare him unopposed for the 2008 election, he will go to CPP and that he will take the party to CPP. He therefore entreated those present to join him to CPP when the time comes,” the petition to the National Chairman emphasized.
It noted that the MP had repeated the same comments when he met with party men from the Enyan-main Zone about a month ago, Mando Zone barely three weeks ago and Denkyira zone on Sunday May 27, 2007.
“In all situations, he tries to convince the people to join him to CPP if he is not declared unopposed for the 2008 election,” the petition said.
The petition, captioned: ‘Report on the behaviour of Hon. Isaac Edumadze’, makes several complaints about the attitude of the legislator which they claim had brought confusion in the party.
Giving the genesis of the issues that underpin the complaint against the legislator, the petition, signed by the constituency Chairman, and Secretary, Messrs George Apeadu-Mensah and Killicks J. E. Arthur respectively, indicated that the problems date back to days when Hon Edumadze was the regional Minister.
The petition states that soon after the election of the current NPP executives of the constituency into office, the MP made them to believe that the District Chief Executive for the area was not a good man and thus urged them not to cooperate with him.
“The MP was so serious on this issue that anyone of the executives who even ventured to go to the office of the DCE even for official purposes was immediately declared his enemy,” the petition said.
The petition indicated that the party executives in the constituency were not happy about the relationship between the DCE and the MP and therefore tried to bring the two officials together to settle the misunderstanding between them but Hon. Edumadze objected to the peace deal.
The petition continued that following his objection to peace negotiations, the MP then incited the constituency executives of the party against the Chairman when he realized the Chairman had closed relations with the DCE. “He later advocated the removal of the Chairman and the Secretary when it became clear that they were co-operating with the DCE,” and “precisely when the Secretary announced that the current crop of executives would ensure free and fair primaries and would not allow anyone to impose himself on them as an unopposed candidate,” it stated.
The petitioners contend that the MP had openly declared his intention to run for a fourth term, had been doing his best to convince executives of the party to declare him unopposed, became highly offended by the cooperation being given to the DCE and therefore started taking steps to remove the entire executive from office. The petitioners further alleged that at a time when the remunerations of the Clerks at the party office were in arrears for seven months and the rent on the party office had been in arrears for two years, the MP was rather concerned about how to remove the party officers by trying to bring polling station Chairmen together to get the constituency executives out.
“Two separate Time Action Plans with budgets drawn by the executives and presented to him for funding to run party programmes had also been ignored consciously,” the petition further charged.
It went on to state that on February 3, 2007, the MP caused a letter to be written inviting party executives to his 50th anniversary birthday party.
It said the invitation went out at a time the legislator had already put himself in the bad books of the party executives and consequently, the executives refused to honour the invitation in protest against the MP’s, “continued disrespect towards them.”
The petition against Edumadze said even after the snubbing by the polling station leaders, he still went on to try and get the constituency officers removed and pointed out that two polling station Chairmen who went into the fold of the MP have been suspended through what it called ‘laid down disciplinary procedures’.
It stated further that the suspended polling station chairmen had actually gone ahead to write a letter seeking to pass a vote of no confidence in the constituency executives addressed to the Regional Office of the party with copies to the National Headquarters.
In the midst of these developments, the petitioners made a desperate call to the leadership of the party to help restore the faith of the people of the area, especially women, in the party. “There is growing tension over here especially among the women so do please intervene to help restore their faith in the party,” it appealed to the National Chairman.
The executives therefore declared their unconditional opposition to any attempt to have the MP go for another term since according to them, the party would suffer a disastrous consequence should it select Hon. Edumadze as its candidate for 2008. According to them, the people had lost confidence in the MP.
When Hon. Edumadze was contacted on phone for his reaction to the claims in the petition, his only comment was that, “hey, hey, you can go ahead with your nonsense; am tired of you.”
