Thursday, March 24, 2011

Tension brew at CPP Jomoro constituency

THE Convention People’s Party (CPP) assistant Secretary for the Jomoro Constituency in the Western Region, Mr Francis Akesseh, has accused the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Ms Samia Yaaba Nkrumah, of resorting to the divide and rule tactics and other wrong moves that are endangering the party’s only seat.
“What Samia is doing will jeopardise the chances of our only seat. We are, therefore, calling on the national executive to as a matter of urgency conduct investigations into Samia and her group’s activities and instil discipline,” he added.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Accra, the Assistant Jomoro Constituency Secretary alleged that since Ms Nkrumah won the seat, she had refused to deal with the entire constituency executive but had resorted to using her favourites to manage the constituency, instead of the elected executive.
He added that this and other issues such as not recognising the position of some constituency executive and refusing to visit parts of the constituency after she had won the elections, culminated in the Chairman of the Constituency, Mr Francis K. Tandoh, to resign his position.
He added that although it was not within the authority of the executive of the constituency to receive and accept the resignation of their chairman, the other executive in Samia’s camp did and wrote to Mr Tandoh.
According to Mr Akesseh, who was accompanied to Accra by Mr Anthony A. Mensah, Bonyere branch executive member of the party, currently the MP had formed a team outside the constituency executive who have been holding meetings and taking decisions for the constituency.
He said another worrying development was that after the chairman had resigned, the regional executive connived with Samia’s group to swear in the second constituency vice chairman as the new chairman while the first vice chairman who was the next in line got sidelined.
However, Ms Nkrumah denied all the allegations and said it had taken a lot of hard work from committed members and supporters to win the only seat for the CPP and that it was working relentlessly to retain the seat and advised that any move to spoil the work done would not be in the interest of the party.
Ms Nkrumah who is contesting the CPP Chairmanship position said it was people who were not comfortable with her declaration to contest for the chairmanship position of the party who have started spreading all these unfounded allegations but added that she would not be deterred in her quest to become the chairperson of CPP.
The Western Regional Chairman of the party, Mr Samuel Gordon Etroo, dismissed the allegations claiming that they were orchestrated by people who were not comfortable about Ms Nkrumah’s ambition to become the chairman of the party.
Mr Etroo alleged that the dirty works was being “orchestrated by some people who have been using the CPP’s name over the years to enrich themselves at the expense of the dwindling fortunes of the CPP, they are afraid that when Samia becomes the chairman of the party, those opportunities would cease, hence the use of all sort of foul means to thwart her move to become the CPP chairman”.
Explaining why the constituency chairman resigned and how he was replaced with the second vice chairman, Mr Etroo said when he received the resignation letter from the constituency to that effect, he called for a meeting with the executive and the chairman, but the chairman refused to attend the meeting.
He alleged during a meeting with the Mr Tandoh, he insisted that because he (Mr Tandoh) had assisted Samia to win the seat, Samia must support him some money as capital to trade with, a situation Mr Etroo said he could not fathom.
Mr Etroo said when his several attempts to persuade Mr Tandoh to rescind his decision had failed he (Mr Etroo) sent the resignation letter to the Central Committee and NEC at the national headquarters which accepted and wrote back to Mr Tandoh.
He said the party decided on the second vice chairman to replace the Mr Tandoh, because the first vice chairman hardly attended any party meetings, had very little time for party activities and that was the reason why the second vice chairman became the obvious choice.
Mr Etroo said he had risked his life travelling to the various constituencies in the region for party activities with his time and resources as well as to Accra for party meetings and therefore he would not sit idle for the party to collapse.
Mr Etroo appealed to the members of the party not to allow themselves to be used by people who were not interested in the growth and prosperity of the party and were bent on breeding disunity among the members of the Jomoro constituency.
The Constituency Youth Organiser, Mr Bejamin Fameyeh corroborated what Mr Etroo had said and added that aside those problems, the real problem even started before Samia won the seat.
He said Mr Tandoh had a language barriers as far as Samia was concerned because he (Mr Tandoh) could not speak English and that anyone he saw talking to Samia was taken as talking ill about him and added that the constituency executives were preparing a press conference to expose all those behind the ill machinations to destroy the hard won reputation of Samia.

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