NPP Suame race turns Akufo-Addo vrs Kyei Mensah Bonsu

The race for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) Parliamentary seat in the Suame Constituency is almost degenerating into fisticuffs between Minority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu and his closest rival, Kwadwo Boateng Genfi, the Republic Newspaper can report.

Days to the Parliamentary Primaries, this paper has picked up reports that the flagbearer of the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo has allegedly dispatched his aides to the Suame Constituency (one of the NPP’s biggest political strongholds) to displace the incumbent Osei-Kyei Mensah Bonsu in favor of Boateng Genfi.

Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu is said to have fallen out of favour with the opposition party’s flagbearer and he has earmarked his seat as one of the seats that he intends to be filled by his loyalists.

Akufo-Addo’s controversial nephew, Gabby Asare-Otchere Darko is said to have camped in Suame, as “Nana’s Boys” map their plans from the ground to wrest the seat from the incumbent who has occupied the seat for almost 20 years.

It is believed that Osei Kye-Menssh Bonsu, who use to appeal to the Akufo-Addo camp in the NPP, has lost worth with Akufo-Addo, given what has been said as him giving the majority National Democratic Congress (NDC) to over-run him and some of his colleagues in Parliament.

Gabby Otchere-Darko had been recently very unequivocal in his criticism of what he described as the dormancy of the Minority in Parliament, led by Osei-Kyei Mensah Bonsu.

Sources have told this paper that Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu’s fall from grace to grace in the sight of Akufo-Addo has resulted in a serious bad blood running between him and Akufo Addo’s new ‘Poster Boy’ in the Suame Constituency.

The bad blood between the two has spilled over into the media with both accusing the other of playing “dirty politics”.

Mr. Boateng Genfi is accusing the incumbent Kyei Mensah-Bonsu of masterminding “dirty tactics” to undermine him in the constituency, saying because of the Minority Leader’s “selfish interest” he is trying all he can to put hurdles in the path of other people showing interest in the seat that he has held for almost two decades.

“It is sad for somebody calling himself a Minority leader to be behaving like that…these are the behavior ruining the party…Let’s think about the party and stop the selfish interest,” Boateng Genfi fumed on Accra based Okay FM on Tuesday.

Osei-Mensah Bonsu was recently engulfed a serious controversy following his appeal to the leadership of the NPP to protect his seat from newcomers, arguing that it was not good for an experienced parliamentarian like him to be ousted because it would weaken the party’s parliamentary presence.

“You are blunting the cutting edge of your own party if every four years you keep peeling off the people who should be holding aloft your party in parliament,” Hon. Kyei Mensah-Bonsu argued.

He said, “… in the advanced democracies, you don’t have a situation where at the end of the tenure of parliament, the floodgate is opened to allow unfettered contest; there is nowhere in the world where this system operates.”

This argument has been strongly criticized by his opponents who believe he is only arguing that way to protect his skin.

According to Genfi, after almost 20 years in parliament, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu had nothing to show as his contribution to his constituents at Suame.

He accused the minority leader of not being able to spearhead a strong enough opposition to the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Parliament and therefore needed to hang his gloves, saying 20 years was enough for him to take a bow.

He said many old parliamentarians were giving way for new ones, but others [like the Minority Leader], “because of their selfish interest want to die in parliament.”

Recently, the minority in Parliament was at the butt end of strong criticisms from party members for being dormant and unable to seriously put the ruling NDC on its toes. This situation may have perhaps sparked a wave of fresh politicians in the party determined to get rid of the old guards.

It is unclear, if the old guard is threatened by this avalanche, but actions like what Osei-Kyei Mensah is advocating and the recently infamous “Ursula Owusu Clause” seeking to prevent the seat of certain individuals from being contested has reinforced speculations that the NPP’s old faces in Parliament have become endangered species.

Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu has been in Parliament since 1996 and is contesting the seat again. He had on some occasions contested the seat unopposed in the past, but this time around he is being faced with strong opposition.

This is not the first time Genfi is making an attempt at the seat. In 2004, he made the move, but was disqualified since his membership in the party was known at Ablekuma in Accra and not Suame.

Genfi is the son of the late Nana Kofi Genfi, a man with an obsession for Hats. He was captured by the Guinness Book of World Records and nicknamed the “Hatman” for his collection of hats from the world over.