Husband & Wife For Parliament?

Come January 2013, Ghana may have a husband and wife both seated as members of Parliament on one side of the House. The Daybreak newspaper can confirm that while Tourism Minister Zita Okaikoi is lacing her boots to contest the Dome Kwabenya parliamentary seat, her husband; Andrew Okaikoi, Board Chairman of the Ghana Disabled Foundation is watering the grounds to contest the Okaikoi North Parliamentary seat.

Both would be contesting on the ticket of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the posters would thus read: Andrew Okaikoi for Okaikoi North and Zita Okaikoi for Dome-Kwbenya.

Zita has confirmed that she would contest the Dome seat but the family is tightlipped over Andrew’s ambition. He is however reported to have met with several opinion leaders in the Okaikoi North constituency and made his ambition clear to them.

The Tourism Minister, in what appears as a subtle campaign for the parliamentary primaries, has increased her party activities in Dome-Kwabenya while her husband meets with various groups of people in and around Okaikoi North.

Zita, in 2008, was the NDC candidate for Dome Kwabenya where she lost to the incumbent Prof. Aaron Mike Oquaye. She is on record to have attracted the highest number of votes for the NDC in that constituency.

As part of her moves to win the primaries, she recently organized the formation and inauguration of the Dome Kwabenya Constituency branch of the NDC Youth Wing. At the function, the Deputy Minister for Information, who was speaking in his capacity as the special guest of honour asked her critics to pipe down their grumblings on her intention compete for the seat. “If Zita wants to run for Parliament, there is nothing wrong with it because she fully qualifies and has demonstrated that she can take care of the constituency; she is not like others who would not contribute or organize people for the party but would wait till someone has done that then they come with money at the last minute to buy borborbor groups and football jerseys for people.

“Even though the Dome Kwabenya constituency is an orphaned one for the NDC, it is more vibrant than some constituencies where we have sitting MPs … so if she wants to go for the seat, she should be allowed and people must stop this infighting at the grassroots level over such matters. She is a fine material and I think she is okay for Parliament because she can take the seat for us,’ Okudzeto noted.