Evalue Gwira NDC Chairman 'stops' Goosie Tanoh campaign team from meeting voters

Reliable information available indicates that the Constituency Chairman of opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Evalue-Ajomoro Gwira Constituency in the Western Region, Emmanuel Ennor Kofi on Sunday sabotaged a meeting between the Campaign Team of flag bearer aspirant, Goosie Tanoh and branch executives in the constituency.

According to sources, the Constituency Campaign Team of Goosie Tanoh had arranged a meeting with delegates at Axim Community Center to sell the hope message of Mr Tanoh to the voters but surprisingly the Constituency Chairman, Emmanuel Kofi stopped the meeting.

The Chairman was said to have personally called all the delegates on phone to warn them not to attend the arranged meeting with #teamGoosie in the Western Region.

This is after the campaign team of Goosie Tanoh had written to the leadership of the party in the Constituency informing them of their intention to embark on the door-to-door and branch to branch campaign in the constituency.

When contacted the Constituency Chairman blatantly refused to comment but took to various media houses within the Region to justify his action to physically prevent a campaign team of an aspirant from meeting delegates.

According to him, his actions were taken to please John Mahama who is currently on a campaign tour to the Western Region.

This is not the first time a loyal supporter of Mr Mahama had attempted to intimidate and stop the campaign team of Goosie Tanoh from meeting delegates.

Speaking to the incident, the Western Regional Campaign Team Coordinator of Goosie Tanoh, Joel Ndede popularly known as Hon. Arise expressed his disappointment in the Chairman and described as an undemocratic.

He accused the Chairman of favouring Mr John Mahama in the area.

Mr Ndede said the Constituency Chairman asked the Campaign Team of Goosie Tanoh to officially write a letter to them and according to him, they complied and even directed them to copy the Constituency Secretary.

According to him, after the organizers of the Team have informed the branch executives, to their surprise, the Constituency Chairman called all the branch executives and warned them not to attend the meeting.

The meeting was expected to be held at 1 pm after church service but a visit to the venue shown empty seats as at 2 pm and beyond.

"They didn't come because the Chairman has threatened them not to come, Mr Reporter this is purely undemocratic and I can say on authority that this is coming from John Mahama Campaign Team because the Chairman knows that Mr Goosie Tanoh message is being bought by the delegates so they are afraid of our presence", he lamented.

He added, "We are giving the Campaign Team of John Mahama 24 hours to issue a statement to condemn what the Evalue-Ajomoro Gwira NDC Chairman and prove to the world that they are not behind this undemocratic act".

In November 2018, supporters of John Mahama and Goosie Tanoh clashed at Ashaiman over campaign posters.

The said “fight” also occurred just before a planned visit by Mahama to Ashaiman constituency as it has allegedly occurred again in the Evalue Gwira constituency ahead of a planned campaign by Mr Mahama.

Information picked up indicate that many constituency and regional executives are resorting to these unconstitutional tactics because they have been promised that if they help elect the former president as the flagbearer and he is successfully elected as President of Ghana, Regional/Constituency chairman will be rewarded with Regional Minister/DCE positions, Secretaries with NHIA Director positions while organisers will be rewarded with NADMO Director positions.

This promise has supposedly has been made to all regional and constituency Chairmen, Secretaries and Organizers. Being the most significant stumbling block to the emergence of the former president as a flagbearer, these executives who have bought into the promise have targeted specifically the Goosie Tanoh campaign team.

GOOSIE TANOH COMPLAIN OF INTIMIDATION

After he submitted his nomination forms to the party headquarters in December last year, Goosie Tanoh complained of intimidation against his members of his campaign team, especially at the regional and constituency level of the party.

He explained that his team had encountered several unfortunate incidents in the course of their campaign across the country.

He lamented that some of his supporters had been receiving telephone calls from some top officials of the party threatening them to stop campaigning for Goosie Tanoh, a founding member of the NDC.

“We are cataloguing all this intimidation by various levels of the party and so at the appropriate time, we will release them so that everybody has an idea” he added.