The constituency to watch in the National Democratic Congress’s (NDC) second leg parliamentary primaries tomorrow is the Tema West Constituency of the Greater Accra Region, where Local Government and Rural Development Minister, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, is the formidable horse, racing three others.
He goes into the race with a lot of credential at his disposal. He served twice as NDC National Organizer, an ex-District Chief Executive (DCE), a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Fanteakwa Constituency in the Eastern Region and a sitting Minister of State.
Political analysts have spoken fondly of Ofosu Ampofo’s good human relations, something rarely seen in lots of Ghanaian politicians.
He has endeared himself to many people on both sides of the political divide, and it is not surprising that some party delegates who will be making it to the School of the Deaf in Adjei Kojo near Ashaiman, some Constituency executives say, are mostly clamouring for Mr. Ofosu Ampofo.
In the hot contest are Mr. George Medie, the 2008 NDC candidate for Tema West, Richard Fiadomor an ex-Constituency Secretary, Madam Gladys Boateng, a former-NDC MP for Tema West and Lawyer James Kwesi Enu a new face who is under pressure to explain whether he has had something to do with the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the past.
Lawyer Enu is likely to pose a threat to the Minister but some negative claims making the rounds in the Constituency against him could spoil the lawyer’ party.
One of these claims against the young lawyer is that he is unknown in NDC circles both at the Constituency and national levels, and that even inside the Constituency, especially around Tema Community 2 BBC area, he is known more to be aligned to the NPP and not the NDC.
At his vetting, he was discovered to be in possession of two NDC membership cards; one from the Tema Community 2 BBC Branch of the NDC and the other from the Tema Community 5 Branch of the party.
His family is said to be supporters of the NPP, and that he himself once attempted picking an NPP membership card. But in response, he told The Herald that many people, especially NPP supporters, had impressed upon him to run against the incumbent MP, Irene Naa Torshie Addo, but he choose the NDC over the NPP and refused to do so.
He said he could have gotten the NPP membership had he wanted to do so as the NPP card is easy to acquire in his opinion.
On the issue of the two NDC cards, he said that he had to relocate residence from Tema Community 2 in 2005 to Tema Community 5 Branch in 2008, hence the two NDC membership cards in his possession, and that there is nothing illegal about this.
Another claim he is facing is that he is sharing goodies including cloths to the delegates voting tomorrow, an allegation he vehemently denied, saying he has only offered transportations to the delegates who he had met on his campaign rounds, again adding, “there is nothing wrong with that”.
He told The Herald that claims in the Constituency that he is an NPP supporter are mere allegations making the rounds but without bases whatsoever. He was emphatic, he would emerge winner of tomorrow’s contest after the ballot, had been checked.
Meanwhile, Mr. Ofosu Ampofo, has also been quoted in a section of the media, saying he would win the primaries and move on to defeat the incumbent NPP MP, Naa Torshie Addo, in a Constituency considered a stronghold of the opposition NPP.
