4 Vie for Oda, Asene-Manso-Akroso parliamentary seats
Four members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Akyem Oda and Asene-Manso-Akroso constituencies have been vetted to contest the party’s parliamentary primaries in their respective constituencies.
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In the Asene-Manso-Akroso Constituency 46-year-old Accra-based businessman, Mr George Kwame Aboagye, aka Oluwa, is challenging the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Mr Yaw Owusu-Boateng for the slot to contest the constituency seat on NPP’s ticket in the 2016 general election.
In separate interviews with the two parliamentary aspirants, each of them expressed the confidence of undoing the other.
According to Mr Aboagye, who is participating in the primaries for the first time, he will not only defeat Mr Owusu-Boateng come June 13, 2015, but will also secure more than 60 per cent of the votes.
Mr Aboagye said he was confident that since the same delegates who voted the constituency executive into office were going to vote for the parliamentary candidate in the upcoming NPP primaries, his victory was a foregone conclusion.
Mr Aboagye, a native of Akyem Manso, is a product of the Akwatia Technical Institute (1997). He holds a certificate and a diploma in Business Management from the Zenith University in Accra. According to him, he is currently studying law with a London-based institution through the Zenith University College in Accra.
He said the numerous development projects he had provided across the length and breadth of the constituency even when he was not an MP, coupled with the financial assistance
he had offered to the NPP in the constituency, gave him the edge over Mr Owusu-Boateng.
When this writer contacted Mr Owusu-Boateng, he described the threat by Mr Aboagye as empty and without any substance.
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The Asene-Manso-Akroso Constituency, which was carved out of the Oda Constituency in 2012, is a stronghold of the NPP.
In the 2012 general election, the NPP’s presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, defeated President Mahama by 18,929 votes to 11,379, while Mr Yaw Owusu-Boateng also beat the NDC’s parliamentary candidate, Mr Richard Roland Acquaah, by 17,881 votes to 11,765 to retain the parliamentary seat which he has occupied since 2009.
For the Oda Constituency, a new entrant, an Accra-based businessman, Mr Richard Asante-Bediako, has vowed to unseat the incumbent MP, Mr William Agyapong Quaittoo, who went to Parliament in January, 2013.
Mr Asante-Bediako, a native of Akyem Oda, holds a Civil Engineering Certificate from the Asuansi Technical Institute and a Professional Export Certificate from a private institution in Accra.
He is the proprietor of a sawmill at Offinso-Asuoso in the Ashanti Region and also owns a number of private companies, including two NGOs in Accra.
Mr Quaittoo, a native of Akyem Gyadam, won the Oda Constituency parliamentary seat for the first time in December 2012 after the original Oda Constituency had been split into two, namely Oda and Asene-Manso-Akroso.
When contacted by the Daily Graphic, Mr Quaittoo said Mr Asante-Bediako was no threat to him since he was not known by the constituents.
He said he was much concerned about the adoption of effective strategies to increase the NPP presidential votes from 63 per cent in 2012 to over 75 per cent in 2016.
Mr Quaittoo holds BSc (Hons) degree in Chemistry from the University of Cape Coast, a Diploma in Education from the Galilee College in Israel and MBA (Marketing) from the University of Ghana, Legon.
Before he went to parliament in 2013, Mr Quaittoo was the Commercial Manager and Head of Commercial Unit of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana at Akyem Tafo and later the Manager, Office of the Chief Executive Officer of Ghana Cocoa Board.
The Oda Constituency has been the preserve of the NPP since 1996 after the party had boycotted the parliamentary elections in 1992.
In 2008, Nana Akufo-Addo defeated the late Prof. J.E.A Mills of the NDC by 31,811 votes to 16,005 while Mr Yaw Owusu-Boateng, the then parliamentary candidate of the NPP beat the NDC’s candidate, Mr Kojo Attakrah by 30,441 to 17,766.
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In the 2012 general election, Nana Akufo-Addo of the NPP beat President John Mahama by 20,631 votes to 9,129 while in the parliamentary polls, Mr William Agyapong Quaittoo defeated the NDC candidate, Mr Kwabena Nkansah Asare by 18,972 votes to 6,315.
When the Daily Graphic contacted the Eastern Regional Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr Prince Aboagye, he said all the four contestants for the two constituencies alongside 80 others in the region had been cleared.
He said in all, 92 people picked nomination forms to contest in the 33 constituencies in the region.
According to Mr Aboagye, 84 of them submitted their completed nomination forms and paid the relevant fees to pave the way for their vetting.
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He said no parliamentary aspirant in the region was disqualified as all the 84 people went through the vetting successfully.
Mr Aboagye stated that all the 84 people had now been given the green light to campaign for the keen primaries scheduled for June 13, 2015.
In the Akyem Swedru and Achiase constituencies, the incumbent MPs, Messers Kennedy Osei Nyarko and Robert Kwasi Amoah respectively, were retained unopposed in the primaries because of their outstanding performances in the past.