The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has directed the immediate suspension of all party members who were captured on video performing rituals and cursing party executives in the Offinso South Constituency.
The video which has since gone viral shows the disgruntled party members cursing the incumbent Member of Parliament, Abdullah Banda and national executives for disqualifying their preferred candidate who was aspiring to unseat the MP.
At a news conference in Accra today, Monday, June 8, 2020, General Secretary of the NPP, John Boadu said all the persons involved in the act will be suspended.
The aggrieved supporters on Friday, June 5, 2020, marched through the principal streets in Offinso to the Offin river to perform a ritual over the development.
According to the supporters, they want the leadership of the party to allow two disqualified aspirants to contest the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Abdallah Bandah in order to ensure peace in the constituency.
“All that we want is peace. The community is yearning and all that they want is for the elections to be held for peace and justice to prevail. So we are pleading to the national level to allow peace to prevail in Offinso. For the ritual, it is because we believe in our gods to give us justice in the community. It is not because we want to fight. There is going to be an election in Offinso South. There won’t be anything like someone is going to impose someone we don’t want on us. If they do, we will boycott the election,” one of the supporters said.
Another supporter raised concerns, saying, “all three aspirants have passed through vetting. So we don’t know the reason why our national leaders are telling us not to vote so the incumbent MP goes unopposed. If that is the case, then it means that they are imposing him on us. But NPP believes in a democracy so they should allow all three aspirants to go into the race.”
The NPP is scheduled to conduct its parliamentary primaries on June 20, 2020.
The election was supposed to have come off on April 25, 2020, but was postponed indefinitely due to the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country and the related restrictive measures announced by the President.
‘Parliament primaries suspended’
Mr. Boadu also announced the suspension of parliamentary primaries in the Kwadaso, Gushiegu and the Dormaa Central constituencies dues to some disagreements.