Nadowli-Kaleo NPP candidate upbeat
The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has, by a unanimous acclamation, elected a 27-year-old business consultant, Mr Elvis Banoemuleng Botah, to contest the Nadowli-Kaleo Constituency parliamentary seat in this year’s polls.
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Mr Botah, who commended the delegates for reposing trust and confidence in him, called for unity to work for the betterment of the constituency.
He said he was upbeat about his chances of winning the seat come November 7, 2016.
As such, while assuring the party delegates of a dawn of a new era to liberate them from the shackles of poverty and deprivation, he called on all the electorate to come out in their numbers to vote massively for the NPP.
Two contestants
Already, the National Chairman of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Mr Bernard Anbatayela Mornah, who is also contesting the seat, has equally promised that the PNC would take the seat from the incumbent National Democratic Congress (NDC) MP, Mr Alban Kingsford Sumani Bagbin.
It is interesting that both Mr Botah and Mr Mornah have the same message for the constituents.
According to them, the NDC parliamentary candidate has outlived his usefulness.
“He is at his wits’ end and so does not have anything new to offer to improve the lot of the constituents,” Mr Botah declared after he was elected by his party last Saturday as had previously been uttered by Mr Mornah.
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They expressed worry that after 24 years of the incumbent’s uninterrupted tenure as the MP for the area, the constituency, which doubles as one of the oldest in the Upper West Region (UWR), was way behind most of the newly created districts in terms of availability of social amenities and infrastructural facilities.
This has put some pressure on Mr Bagbin, popularly referred to as Nadowli Mugabe, to step up his game in order to retain the seat.
Resignation of Dr Boye
The election and nomination of the new NPP candidate for the Nadowli-Kaleo seat came with a big bang last Saturday when all the 522 delegates acclaimed the candidature of the young man who was the sole candidature. The bye-election came as a result of the resignation of Dr Robinson Boye Bandie on health grounds after emerging victorious at an earlier primary.
David and Goliath battle
According to the UWR Chairman of the NPP, Alhaji Adbulai Rahman Abukari, the election of Mr Botah is the trump card the party is banking on to win the seat.
He described the 2016 election in the constituency as a “David and Goliath battle” and pointed out that “the new NPP candidate, who is 27 years old, is ready to battle Mr Alban Bagbin, who won the seat when the NPP candidate was just three years old. “
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Since the inception of the Fourth Republic in 1992, the Nadowli-Kaleo seat has remained that of the NDC.
In 2004, for instance, the Daffiama-Bussie- Issa District was carved out of the Nadowli District after which Kaleo, a farming community, was added to it to become Nadowli-Kaleo District. The constituency shares boundaries with Wa West and Central, Jirapa and Daffiama-Bussie-Issa constituencies in the region.