Trouble Looms At Bawku

Ayarigah Fingered

The Deputy Minister for Education, Mr. Mahama Ayariga, is on record to have said that he will do everything within his power to win the Bawku Central seat to re-enter Parliament in the December 7 general elections.

And information available to the Front Page indicates that he has now employed some untoward antics as part of plans to further his inordinate ambition to recapture the seat he lost to the NPP’s Mr. Adamu Daramani-Sakande in 2008.

According to our scouts in the Bawku Central constituency, the deputy minister is desperately playing the ethnic card, in addition to influencing moves by the Electoral Commission to demarcate the proposed new districts and constituencies to favour him and the NDC.

Mr. Ayariga is said to be influencing attempts at new electoral demarcation where part of the Binduri Constituency that was created out of the Bawku Central Municipality will be reversed to the Bawku Central again.

The area being considered is made up of communities, including Nayoko 1&2, Gori and Manga, which are strongholds of the ruling NDC and mostly dominated by the Kusasis.

Though Pusiga is one of the two districts/constituencies created out of the Bawku Central Municipality, Mr. Ayariga is said to be influencing the EC’s decision not to touch it because it is considered relatively safe for the NDC.

By the calculations of Mr. Ayariga and the NDC, if the above four mentioned communities are added to the Bawku Central there will be an increase in the number of Kusasis in the constituency, who will vote against the NPP’s Adamu Daramani-Sakande who is a Mamprusi.

This electoral chicanery being masterminded by Mr. Ayariga, if not stopped, could see the NPP losing both the Bawku Central and Binduri seats to the NDC.

The Binduri seat is held by the NPP’s Stephen Yakubu who is a Kusasi, with the people seeing him as their own. But his votes are expected to be decreased by the proposed movement of the four Kusasi dominated communities to Bawku Central constituency.

Meanwhile, reports reaching this paper indicates that residents of the two districts who have got wind of the development, have grown furious, and threatened not to allow the EC to make such move which some of them think will cost their candidates victory in the December 7 parliamentary elections.

Some political watchers fear this development could disturb the already fragile peace in the area, and have accordingly warned both the ruling NDC and the opposition NPP to conduct their activities in a manner that will not ensure continued peace in the area.

In a related development, the NPP has accused members of the NDC of masterminding last Friday’s burning down of some houses belonging to its members at Bawku. Several houses belonging to NPP members in the Bawku Municipality were on Friday dawn set ablaze.

The burnt houses included that of the former Bawku NPP constituency chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Mohammed Murtala. The incident took place at one of the hotspots in the Bawku township called Zongo.

Amadu Hamza, the Bawku NPP Secretary, suspected the NDC youth in Bawku were behind the arson.

“We think that the attack was politically motivated by members of the ruling government since Mahama Ayariga [NDC parliamentary candidate for the area] came out earlier to allege that NPP members were burning NDC members’ homes two weeks ago,” he said.

“We believe the situation is not calm because there are indications that this is just the beginning and we are expecting government to strengthen the local security arrangement on the ground,” Hamza added.