Why Okoe-Boye lost his seat – Ben Ephson explains

Member of Parliament for the Ledzokuku constituency, Bernard Okoe-Boye, may have contributed to his own woes by indirectly, instigating the arrests of some of his constituents over indiscipline, as far as observation of coronavirus protocols are concerned.

The MP who is also Deputy Minister of Health, lost his seat after the parliamentary polls on December 7, to his opponent from the NDC’s camp, Benjamin Ayiku Nartey who polled some 55938 votes as against his 54072 in that area.

Speaking to Daniel Oduro on GhanaWeb’s Election Desk, Mr. Ephson who had earlier projected possibilities of a win for Mr. Okoe-Boye, suggested, that some past decisions which were very pertinent and necessary, but affected his constituents, may have accounted for the dynamics as far as his loss is concerned.

Narrating events as they happened in the past, he said,

“Okoe-Boye until the Homowo was doing very well. Teshie and the others lacked infrastructure and he had done well, but the last straw that broke the camel’s back was during the Homowo, when the Teshie people do the Lapka (dancing and drumming from Teshie to Labadi) and he made the police stop them because as Deputy Minister of Health giving COVID-19 protocols, the police arrested some of them and it was the NDC candidate who went to bail them so that was something very tricky.”

He however agrees that he had to play his role as minister at the time also to ensure the right thing was done and avoidance of such for his own benefit, could have been sacrilegious.

Commenting on trends from the past however, he said, “For the past 5, 6 elections, Ledzokuku has never voted for the same person twice."