"I'll unite Nanumbas and Konkombas"

The Statesman
Bimbilla (Northern Region) 13 March 2002 - The NPP parliamentary hopeful in the Bimbilla bye-election to be held on Thursday, George Dominic Nitiwul says that his top priority as Member of Parliament would be to initiate, facilitate and speed up moves to bring Nanumbas and Konkombas together.

“No sacrifice would be too big and no effort and energy would be spared to ensure that the days of mutual suspicion and hatred between Nanumbas and Konkombas are replaced with love and a shared vision of movement to progress and development,” said Nitiwul. The young candidate aged 25 who is confident of winning Thursday’s election, says his campaign team is a reflection of his broad-based support.

“I am NPP, my campaign manager is the Bimbilla chairman of the CPP, the 1996 MP for Bimbilla is in my campaign team, the 2000 PNC parliamentary candidate is in my campaign team and the former NDC vice-chairman in Bimbilla is part of my campaign team too”, he counted his fingers as he referred to his multi-partisan team.

Sounding upbeat and already in control and with a charge, the graduate of the University College of Winneba said that due to the deep-seated nature of suspicions and hatred between the older generations of the two ethnic groups, he plans to start the reconciliation process mainly with the youth. Billed to be the youngest member in the 200 seat parliament Nitiwul, who was tracked by The Statesman to Lepusi (a town in the Bimbilla constituency) in the searing 42-degree heat was, so clear about his vision.

“As a youth and teacher myself, I shall encourage young Nanumba Teachers to go and teach in Konkomba areas and vice-versa. I shall also encourage youth football teams from the two groups to play friendly matches in return series as part of the plan to foster friendship and brotherhood among them,” he explained.

Vehemently denying the charge of playing games with the NPP and PNC in the recent controversy over his true party affiliation, Nitiwul was unequivocal. “I have been and I am an NPP man both in deed and at heart.” Explaining, the controversy as the “result of a temporary confusion within the Bimbilla constituency of the NPP,” he said that when it became clear that the Bimbilla seat was to be vacated by Dr Ibn Chambas, the Konkomba community summoned him and told him to contest the seat as their representative.

After hectic discussions during which he managed to convince the Konkombas that there was no way he could stand on the ticket of the NDC, “to which most of my people belonged,” they agreed to follow his leadership instincts into whichever party he contested for.

“My main argument was to use the NDC’s campaign message before this time to win my people over to the NPP. One main campaign talk of the NDC in the North has been that it was useless to vote for a candidate who belonged to the opposition since he could not confer with the President to assist the area with development projects. Now the NPP is in power and the same logic is being applied to get the Konkombas to cross over to the NPP,” he said with a smug.

Nitiwul said that after gaining the block support of the Konkombas, he travelled to Bimbilla to present his case and offer himself as the NPP candidate. He received a very cold shoulder then. This he found very disheartening. After pulling himself together and convincing himself that he still could get the constituency executives to change their minds the young man of resolve made another trip to Bimbilla to restate his case.

“This time, they nearly lynched me, however, after putting the incidents within the context of the Konkomba-Nanumba conflict, I decided to go to Accra to present my position.” At the NPP Headquarters in Accra where he presented his case to General Secretary, Dan Botwe, “I was rebuffed with the explanation that it is the constituency that elects candidates and not the regional or national level that imposes candidates.”

After failing to convince Dan Botwe in a “marathon meeting with one of my friends present,” he left the party headquarters a dejected soul, he said. According to Nitiwul, after two days in Accra, he was contacted by a friend who said that PNC leader Dr Edward Mahama was “looking for me urgently.”

It was when he met Mahama, he said, that the request for him to stand as PNC came up. After much convincing, Dr Mahama asked me to take passport pictures and give them to him. This I did and gave him my photo, after which he asked me to see the Northern Region PNC chairman for discussion.”

The NPP hopeful said that even though he initiated discussions with the PNC to be their candidate, he never fully committed himself. “In fact, I broke off relations with them two weeks after it began and I duly informed Dr Mahama about the fact that I was back with my party, the NPP.”