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UE/R: NPP Chairman justifies suspension of 2 party communicators

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Upper East Regional Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Anthony Namoo has justified the decision of the regional executives to suspend indefinitely, two communicators of the party for misconduct.

In a letter issued and signed by NPP Regional Communications Director, Issa Sanusi, on July 23, 2019, Johnson Ayine, Deputy Communications Director and Wilson Dabou, a member of the communications team of the NPP, were suspended after they were found to have misconducted themselves during A1 Radio’s DayBreak Upper East show on different days and on different issues.

Wilson Dabou (left) and Johnson Ayine (right)
The suspended officer: Wilson Dabou (left) and Johnson Ayine (right)

While Johnson Ayine was suspended for holding a view that President Nana Akufo-Addo should have made findings of investigations into corruptions allegations against the former Chief Executive Officer of Maritime Authority before appointing him to serve as Board Chairman of the Ghana Revenue Authority, Wilson Dabou cautioned Zebilla Member of Parliament who doubles as Deputy Regional Minister, Frank Fuseini Adongo to step up his efforts or else he may lose the seat as Cletus Avoka makes a come-back.

Unfortunately for the two, their comments landed them into trouble.

Reactions monitored by A1Radioonline.com on traditional and social media indicate that some individuals are not enthused about the decision. While some find it as a slap on the freedom of speech of the communicators, others say the decision was too harsh.

Featuring on DayBreak Upper on Wednesday, July 24, 2019, the District Chief Executive of Bongo, Peter Ayinbisa, appealed to the regional executive to lift the suspension and recall them to resume work.

He said, “I want to appeal to the Regional Chairman and Executives to consider calling Johnson and Wilson back as soon as possible. In administration, you must build a dossier before you can sack or suspend or dismiss somebody. We have never heard that Johnson or this man has been reprimanded. Let us reprimand them in-house, let us talk to them in-house, see whether they will come and apologize or not.”

But reacting to the call by the DCE, Mr. Namoo who chaired the meeting that took the decision to suspend the Johnson and Wilson, justified why they should remain on suspension for their misconduct.  

He said, “You know the two of them are senior communicators and I doubt whether Wilson Dabou, I’m not sure he has ever been to Zebilla okay. He doesn’t have the MP’s contact, he has never interacted with the MP and at the time he was speaking, the MP was over there in his constituency working. You know, normally, to run down somebody like that, you must also contextualize the season. This is the season where we are going for primaries okay. It’s is season for primaries and so you must be circumspect in how you look at things. The point is that, he had every opportunity be it from regional executives, constituency executives to find out about the performance of the MP. As a party, we also do research on the performance of our party and therefore, he had every opportunity to know, he ought to have known that what he was saying were not the true state of affairs at the constituency. The MP in his constituency will not go round ringing a bell and announcing to everybody that I’m in my constituency working ooo…can and see me. And therefore, you have to be in the constituency, you have to follow events there before you know what is there.”

According to the chairman, Mr. Dabou as a communications officer approached the issue wrongly thus his suspension. He said if it were a serial caller who made the kind of comments the officer made, the issue could have gone unnoticed but not a communications officer.

On the suspension of Mr. Ayine, Chairman Namoo again justified why the PNC-turned NPP communications officer who is affectionately called Kweku Baako of Upper East Region was also suspended.

Chairman Namoo said, “As a senior communications officer, if the President has taken a decision, what do you do? You have to find out, we have national communications officers, you have regional executives who are working so you have to get information; what is it that informed this decision by the president? Because the President has the reports and what have you on whatever people do. Perhaps, even though the reports on whatever investigations that was going on had not been made public, it does not mean that the President was not privy to it.”

According to Chairman Namoo who is also a private legal practitioner, the two officers were given audience by the executives who meet with them and their tapes were played to for the either deny or accept their voices. He they both confirmed they were those on the separate tapes before the executives handed them the suspension.

When asked when the party will recall them, the chairman said the body that met would have to look at the issue again before the decision may be reviewed.

Source: A1Radioonline.com|101.1MHZ|Ghana

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