The Member of Parliament for the Bawku Central constituency, Hon. Mahama Ayarigah, has paid glowing tribute to his predecessor, Hon. Hawa Yakubu, who has been reported dead in London a few days ago.
Describing the late Hawa Yakubu as “an astute politician”, Hon. Ayarigah stressed that the Bawku Central constituency would be the poorer with her demise.
Hon. Ayarigah expressed these sentiments when he spoke on Radio Gold 90.5FM in Accra yesterday to express how he feels about the demise of his predecessor.
“We have been aware for some time now that she had not been that well, and we had been praying that she would regain her health and come back to continue playing her part in the efforts to develop the constituency. But unfortunately, she has passed away,” Hon. Ayarigah lamented.
Observing that though one may disagree with the way that the late Hawa Yakubu conducted her politics, Hon. Ayarigah pointed out that nonetheless, “at the personal level she was such a generous and motherly person.”
He stressed that their different political leanings notwithstanding, he had a good working relationship with the late MP.
Obviously hesitant to rake old wounds, especially when it might be misconstrued to mean speaking ill of the dead, Hon. Ayarigah said that following the 2004 elections, the late Hawa gave some misreports about him, but he has not allowed those things to define his relationship with her.
He recalled the last time he met the late MP, and said, “we met at a funeral and I walked up to her and shook her hands in full public view, and she asked about how I was and how the constituency was doing. Little did I know then that that was the last time I was seeing her alive.”
