UW/R NPP Chairman warns against endorsing Independent candidates

Loggu (UW), Feb. 25, GNA - Alhaji Abdul-Rahman Abubakari, Upper West Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party on Sunday, warned that any supporter of the Party, who endorses or uses the party's resources to facilitate the political fortunes of any Independent candidate, would face severe sanctions.

The Party, he said has never endorsed "skirt and blouse voting" and therefore any member, who wanted to contest as an Independent parliamentary candidate should do so in his own merit and count himself out of the NPP family.

He gave the warning when he addressed a meeting of party executives, elders and supporters drawn from communities within the Loggu Electoral Area at Loggu in the Wa East District of the Upper West Region.

The Regional NPP Chairman and his entourage made up of the Regional Organizer, Mr Abraham Bakpanla, Mr Mumuni Salia, Wa East Constituency Youth Organizer and Mr Mohammed Abudulai Sidick, a leading Party functionary, were in the area to "seal some cracks" that had developed within the party's front in the constituency. The Wa East Constituency is the only seat being held in Parliament by the NPP in the Upper West Region's.

He said the NPP wanted to retain the Wa East seat alongside six others it had target to wrest from the NDC, but could only achieve that ambition if supporters shelved their personal or sectional interests and went for the larger interests of the Party. "The Party does not belong to any Regional Chairman, sitting MP or District Chief Executive. It belongs to all of us and we all have a stake in it", he emphasized.

Alhaji Abubakari advised them not to give ammunition to their political opponents through bickering, which would later be used against them long after their differences had been resolved. "A scorpion will enter your room to sting you when there is a crack in its wall", he stated.

He urged NPP supporters in the region to respect all those who were joining the party from other political organizations as defectors, reminding them that the votes of NPP supporters alone could not give them the victory they were hoping to achieve in the region.