Upper East Minister asked to resign after NPP’s 'historic defeat' to NDC

Supporters of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) are mounting pressure on the Upper East Regional Minister, Tangoba Abayage, to resign after the party suffered what they describe as a record defeat at the hands of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the region at the recent general elections.

All the three seats the NPP won in 2016 in the region were taken back by the NDC at the 2020 polls. The NDC won as many as 14 of the 15 parliamentary seats in the region this time, the NPP capturing only 1. Besides, the NPP lost the presidential election to the NDC by over 160,000 votes in the region.

The Regional Minister herself vied for the Navrongo Central seat on the NPP ticket but lost to the NDC’s Samson Tangombu Chiragia with a gap that exceeds 11,000 votes.

The NPP supporters, who are also members of the Kofi Adda Grassroots for Peace and Development (KAG-PED), lodged the demand for the Regional Minister’s resignation at a news conference convened in the Navrongo Central Constituency this week.

“We call on the Regional Minister to do the honourable thing and leave office because out of the fifteen constituencies in the region, NPP won only one seat and lost the previous three seats which were occupied by the party. This is because the Regional Minister, Hon. Tangoba Abayage, couldn’t market the party well in the region, thus the first ever disgraceful defeat of the party in the region,” the supporters said in a statement signed by the Convener, Ing. David Basepe Nyerere Adda, and read by the Spokesperson, Martin Agyua.

Two days after she lost the parliamentary election, the Regional Minister reportedly told the press she failed to win the seat because the outgoing Member of Parliament (MP) for Navrongo Central, Joseph Kofi Adda, waged a campaign against her.

She is quoted to have said: “I have concrete evidence that he sponsored other candidates against me. I have a piece of video evidence of that. I’m not just talking from the blues. I have evidence that he campaigned vigorously against my candidature. He supported the NDC and PPP candidates and I have evidence.”

Addressing the press at the news conference, the pro-Adda group refuted the Regional Minister’s claims, describing them as “absurd allegations”.

“If there was somebody to blame for her defeat, then, the blame should go to Hon. Tangoba Abayage, the MCE, and the Constituency Executive. Long before parliamentary nominations were due to be opened in the Navrongo Central Constituency for the 2020 general elections, some individuals, who eventually turned out to be members of Hon. Tangoba Abayage’s election campaign camp, began to take a shot at Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda at the time he was the Minister for Water Resources and Sanitation. A lot of abusive languages was hurled at Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda and members of his camp after he lost the primaries to Hon. Tangoba Abayage.

“All of us became targets for victimisation at the hands of the camp of Hon. Tangoba Abayage. A certain group of media practitioners who were hired to project Hon. Tangoba Abayage ridiculed Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda on-air and online after his defeat at the primaries. Throughout the months of mockery and ill-treatment meted out to Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda and his supporters, the parliamentary candidate in the person of Hon. Tangoba Abayage did not see the need to call them to order as though she was very pleased at the things her camp was doing against the members of the same NPP family.

"Elders of the party attempted to forge reconciliation between the two camps ahead of the main elections but the camp of Hon. Tangoba Abayage would not cooperate,” the group said in its statement.

The statement added: “If Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda actually wanted to sabotage Hon. Tangoba Abayage’s campaign, he would have stood independent to thwart her chances; but he did not do so. His hands are clean. Hon. Tangoba Abayage and her team said they did not need Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda and his team to win the seat and they left Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda and his team out of their campaign programme.

"As a result of these circumstances, Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda spent his time and resources campaigning for the NPP’s parliamentary candidate in the Chiana-Paga Constituency, Hon. Robert Aloo. Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda campaigned for His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in the Navrongo Central Constituency and the Chiana-Paga Constituency. Nobody brought down Hon. Tangoba Abayage. She brought herself down with the aid of the Municipal Chief Executive for the Kassena-Nankana Municipality, the NPP’s Chairman for the Navrongo Central Constituency and some others. Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda remains a legend in Navrongo.”