Joe Osei-Owusu,first Deputy Speaker of Parliament
The first deputy speaker of parliament Joe Osei Owusu has said he resigned from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to contest as an independent candidate for the Bekwai seat in the 2008 parliamentary election because the incumbent MP for the area then was on the verge of losing the seat to the NDC.
Mr. Osei Owusu announcing his decision pledged to wrest the seat from the incumbent Kofi Poku-Adusei who defeated him by a single vote in the NPP primary then.
There was jubilation among a section of the NPP supporters when he made the announcement.
“Before I decided to contest I was thoroughly satisfied that my MP at the time if we presented him the party was going to lose,” Mr. Osei Owusu, who is also the chairman of the Appointments Committee of Parliament, told Bola Ray on Starr Chat Wednesday.
“Even with that after the primaries I thought I was unfairly treated and I came back and decided let me just go and support the president’s campaign but a group of people [some are very high in security agencies and I won’t mention names] they sent me a letter they have formed a council—the Amansie Council and said listen it is not because of anything that we want you to lead… “I has actually pointedly declined to attend meetings for which I was invited to contest as independent.
In the last meeting they came and one of them is very close to my wife so he went to my wife and told her ‘tell your husband it is not because he is handsome but it is because we know that in every part of Bekwai development in a very young age has been part of it…if he fail to face the challenge now he should forever forget about doing politics here,’” he added.
