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If it was acted out in the Effua Southerland Studio of University of Ghana, students would have felt the same way the people in Lawra, in the Upper West Region felt-Shock! - seeing their former Upper West Regional Minister, now the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Parliamentary Candidate, Bede Zieden, run after President Mahama’s convoy which was disappointingly  taking of, after the chiefs in the area refused to show up to welcome the President on his ‘Accounting To The People Tour’ and, like a funeral crier screaming: “stop the car, please, stop him!”. 

During the President’s tour to the region last week, our very reliable sources told this paper that the chiefs and influential executives of the party boycotted what was supposed to be a mini-rally to give President Mahama the opportunity to account for his stewardship since he became the President of the republic.

Disgraced by the no-show from the influence peddlers, this paper gathered that the organisers of the event had to turn to the Directors of education in the area to close the pupils early (10:30am) so they would fill-in for the absent chiefs in welcoming the number one gentleman of the land.

“We deliberately boycotted the rally to send signals up there that Bede Zieden is not our choice, he has stolen our verdict and since our executives seem to be quite on this we have decided to vote massively against the party we have invested so much in. For now we are still in talks with Hon Samson Abu, that at least he should listen to us and contest as an independent candidate, but if it doesn’t work then we have no option than to rally behind the NPP and vote against the NDC, so that it will serve as a historical lesson in the political history of Lawra. We are the masses and they have to listen to us, now you see they had to direct the Education Directorate to close all schools at 10:30am, just to fill space, but at the end of the day these children are not the ones going to vote, they are minors”, one of the executives told our roving scouts on the ground.

This shame follows series of petitions filed by the party’s constituency executives and other electorates to the National Executive Committee (NEC) to restrain Bede Zieden from contesting the parliamentary slot because his position as the Deputy Director of Elections at the time put him in a conflict of interest possible as far as the their primary in the area is concerned had fallen on deaf ears.

 Before the party expanded its electoral college, readers would recall that this paper in its 13th August 2015 edition, reported on how Bede Zieden confessed to have connived with his Regional Organizer to use “ways and means” to ‘smuggle’ more registration booklets in order to secretly register more of his people in Lawra.

The paper stated among other things stated Bede Zieden lobbied and had 500 booklets for the upper West Region and reported smuggled 300 to the Lawra Constituency, leaving 200 for the entire region.

Despite all the efforts by the constituency executives and majority of the electorates to stop Bede Zieden from contesting, he managed to poll 2747 votes against Hon Samson Abu (incumbent) who polled 2731 votes.

Months after the elections, the aggrieved constituency executives, backed by some powerful electorates again petitioned the party at the national level to address their misgivings over the electoral fraud and the constitutional breach of the entire process, but again, it hit a snag.

More so, an independent survey carried out by a senior Lecturer of the University of Development Studies (UDS), Emelia Seidu, in May this year has confirmed the possibility of the NDC losing the seat to the NPP.

According to the survey the incumbent MP was still popular in the constituency and “if he decides to go independent, he would clinch the seat again”.

Out of 900 respondents sampled from 30 communities in the constituency 28% said they would vote for Anthony Karbo while 26% endorsed Bede Zeideng.

 Interestingly, the incumbent MP, who was defeated in the primary, had an overwhelming 46% of the respondents still wanting him to be their MP.

The Lawra constituency which was previously part of the Nandom constituency had seen the NPP’s Ambrose Dery annexing it from the then NDC MP, Dr Benjamin Kumbour who is now the incumbent MP for Nandom and the Minister for Defense.

Stay tuned.