Mr Kwasi Owusu-Yeboa, a legal practitioner, on Thursday filed to contest the chairmanship position of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Volta Region, promising to reverse the Party’s ebbing fortunes there.
‘There is the urgent need for re-branding of the NPP in the region, and that is what I am set to superintend as Party Chairman, working with my lieutenants,” he stated in an interaction with journalists before moving to the Party office to file his papers.
Mr Owusu-Yeboa who was the Volta Regional Minister for four years during the Kufuor regime, said it appeared people of the region “have not responded positively to our message.”
He said while it was true that political parties everywhere had their support bases and areas where following was weak; that proverbial bad performance of the NPP in the region must be scientifically confronted and tackled.
Mr Owusu-Yeboa said one way his administration could reach the people better was the strategic re-zoning of the region to make message penetration easier and networking more practicable.
He said this way, more and more Party people could be roped into Party activities, thereby promoting some form of “democratic mass participation”.
Mr Owusu-Yeboa said the current north, centre and south political delineation of the region was too saggy for building more affirmative political linkages.
He said his administration would also build strong ties with traditional leaderships across the region, and try to make them accept the NPP as having cogent solutions to the country’s problems.
Mr Owusu-Yeboa spoke against the practice of tagging politicians and political followings to ethnic groups, with the view to fanning animosities.
He said in the Volta Region, a microcosm of Ghana, fanning ethnicity would amount to “seeking to create a state of mental darkness around the people”.
“The ethnic diversity in the Volta Region should inure to its advantage as every ethnic group has its strengths and weaknesses,” Mr Owusu-Yeboa stated.
He stated that prejudice was bad and could destroy; and must not grip the people of the region.
Mr Owusu-Yeboa observed that the Ghanaian electorate was transforming slowly and gaining the insight to hold politicians not only “responsive but responsible for their promises”.
After filing, followed by scores of the recently elected constituency executives, he stated, “when we take the position, (Regional Chairmanship) we would bring everybody on board and then move on to winning political power in 2016 to bring some respite to the people”.
