Why Paul Afoko Is NPP’s Best Bet ...

...To Salvage The Brong Ahafo Region In 2016

The issue of recapturing the Brong Ahafo has featured prominently on the litany of considerations our delegates are giving in to. This is because, at any of the two times the NPP had won presidential elections, the Brong Ahafo region had been instrumental. In 2000 and in 2004. However, Mr Steven Ntim an aspiring candidate for NPP national chairman has alluded that he is the best candidate to wrestle back the region for us because he hails from the region. While I concede that the considerations that informs a voter’s choice of a candidate could be a complex web of varying issue, I equally believe that the reasons adduced by Steven Ntim is vigorously flawed because it paints on his part some poverty of knowledge of the demographic make-up of the region and how it has dynamically evolved over the past decade

Mr Steven Ntim was the National chairman of the NPP in the 2008 elections when the party exited the corridors of political power . Incidentally we lost the Brong Ahafo region in that election, why then didn’t the people of the region vote for the NPP because Steven Ntim was part of the national leadership of the party then ? The reason is not far-fetched , the native population largely voted for the NPP, but because the settler population had increased exponentially, the NPP lost the presidential elections for the region. Thus, in trying to find the right choice of a chairman who can salvage for us our erstwhile third stronghold, It is important that we understand how the population of both the native Bono’s and the settler communities.

The 2010 population census , pegged the settler population of the Brong Ahafo region (predominantly northerners) to 44 percent. These statistics explains our electoral nightmares in the Brong Ahafo in both the 2008 and 2012 elections. Again, because of the increasingly cosmopolitan nature of the BA region, the urban-traditonal-strongholds of the party have also been adulterated by settlers chiefly from the North, occasioning a continual dip in our vote basket even in places like Techiman, kintampo and Tano North. Therefore, in attempting to consolidate our fortunes and maintaining a firm hold of our traditionally sympathetic areas like Nkoranza, Berekum et al, we must find a prescription that embodies a solution for both the ''settler infiltration phenomenon'' of our urban- traditional -strongholds and the ''threat of the rural Brong Ahafo population'' which are also largely non-natives

Steven Ntim appeals to the established voter population in the region, who will vote for the NPP irrespective of who is chairman, but what about the rural /settler population of electorates and the urban settlers resident in our traditional strongholds, whose support we need to secure electoral victory ? To make modest impact in these areas, we need a chairman these set of electorates can relate to, someone they can identify with. There is an abiding sympathy between people who share certain commonalities like origin, race, ,language, accent in speech et al and undoubtedly these set of population will be more embracing of Paul Afoko . Steve may be good , but under the current circumstances of the party, the options against Paul Afoko are few and far between.

GIVE ME PAUL ANYDAY!

samudeens@yahoo.co.uk

0245112753