NDC supporters disrupt campaigns of parliamentary aspirants

There were disturbances in the camps of two Parliamentary aspirants of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Chiana-Paga constituency of the Upper East Region over the weekend when some supporters disrupted campaign activities of the aspirants in some electoral areas.

Supporters from Kandiga and Paga-Sakaa allied to each of the two aspirants, according to details of the Saturday disturbances, prevented Nikyema Billa Alamzy and Rudolf Nsorwinne Amenga-Etego, respectively, from engaging delegates during their campaign tours of the areas.

Sources said sympathizers of the incumbent MP from Kandiga which is his stronghold prevented members of Mr. Alamzy’s team, majority of whom came from the Sirigu area, from addressing party delegates who had gathered there to meet him as part of his campaign tour.

According to our sources, the youth disrupted the campaign of Nikyema Billa Alamzy on accusations that his team members from Sirigu meted out same treatment to them when they recently toured the area with Rudolf Nsorwinne Amenga-Etego.

The disturbance in the end foiled the campaign of Nikyema Billa Alamzy at Kandiga as he refused to speak to the gathering.

Displeased by the actions of their fellow party members on Mr. Alamzy, his supporters who heard about the incident massed up at Paga-Sakaa, Alamzy’s stronghold, where the incumbent MP was engaging some delegates and revenged by stopping him from campaigning.

Constituency party executive intervened and quickly doused rising tensions.

Kopanamo James Kojo, the constituency chairman of the party who confirmed the incident to our reporter condemned the actions of the youth, with a call on aspirants to bring their supporters to order.

He said the party’s functional executive committee has, after the incident, summoned all five Parliamentary aspirants contesting the primaries to caution them and supporters against engaging in acts that may undermine the democratic credentials of the NDC.

The outspoken chairman said the leadership of the party at the constituency level wants to ensure an incident free primary and will therefore not countenance any behaviour that will derail their efforts.

He cautioned both aspirants and supporters against politics of insults and appealed to members of the umbrella fraternity and supporters of the various candidates to refrain from lies, insults and mudslinging.

He said- “yes, both incidents happened. Yesterday around 16 hours gmt, I got a call from someone that some disturbances had taken place in Kandiga involving Alamzy and his team and some supporters of the incumbent MP, Rudolf Amenga-Etego. Alamzy was said to have gone there to carry out his campaign activities but was prevented from doing his campaign by some youth. Theirwd reason was that, the Sirigu people in Alamzy’s team handled them badly when they went to Sirigu to campaign for the incumbent MP and that they will not allow them to speak.

So they prevented them from speaking and Alamzy also decided not to speak and left the scene.

Later same day, the incumbent MP who was also on a campaign tour was stopped from addressing some delegates in Paga-sakaa by supporters of Alamzy who had heard what the youth of Kandiga had done to him. They also massed up at that area and stopped the MP”.

“When we, the party executives heard about the incident, we condemned it and summoned the aspirants and reiterated the need to conduct a clean, incident free campaign.

We will also meet the two aspirants involved in the incident and their core team members to caution them against unhealthy campaigns.

This is an internal election. We are not competing with any external party. This is an in-house contest and we think this should be devoid of name calling, insults and personal attacks”. The chairman cautioned.

Mr. Kopanamo called on members of the party to put away their differences and foster unity before and after the primaries and support the preferred candidate that will be selected so as to ensure a resounding victory for the NDC.