There is a patent internal political conflict ensuing in the Bolgatanga East Constituency of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in Upper East Region.
The conflict is between the constituency Chairman, David Akologo and District Chief Executive Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Abole. The two stalwarts on Wednesday August 7, 2019 went public on radio to wash their dirty lenient with the chairman first stating that the DCE has a sour relationship with the constituency executives.
The two are parliamentary aspirants in the September primaries of the NPP and this could have accounted for the unhealthy accusations they exhibited on A1 Radio’s DayBreak Upper East show.
When host of the show, Samuel Mbura, quizzed Mr. Akologo on the relationship between the constituency executive and the DCE, her responded; “To be honest, sincere and fair, the cooperation is not there. It is not high. Hardly, hardly; he hardly consults [executive]. I can deduce something small. Maybe it can be his style but the fact is that, majority of the people who won the constituency election; he wasn’t in favour of them and from then, when he was nominated and confirmed, we hardly interact so well.” He claimed one executive is very close to the DCE whom he uses.
When he was further asked by host Mbura about how he and his executives are working to resolve their differences, Mr. Akologo said, “My DCE is a fine gentleman, I want to say that but he is not on the ground with the people and the party is crying for the one who is on the ground with them and can move the votes and can win. Because he has not lived here for long, people don’t know him much and now that he is coming in. Again too, apart from that he is the DCE, so he hardly will even get that time to get to the people to tell the message so looking at these factors put together, and people crying and telling me chairman you right person for now, why don’t you come out? I can’t disappoint the people.”
He further said, “I have been calm, I have gone to his office a number of times to propose meetings and made moves with my regional chairman, with my party elders and we are working towards that.”
Mr. Akologo also confirmed that a patron of the party recently scheduled a meeting which brought him, the DCE and the constituency executives to the regional party executives to resolve the differences they have of the DCE.
On an allegation that the DCE, Prof. Abole had distributed bags of Planting for Food and Jobs Fertilizer to party delegates as a way of luring them to vote for him in the primaries, the chairman said when the issue came up, the DCE apologized to the executives and said he should have consulted them before the distribution which he did not.
In a quick rebuttal on the show, Prof. Abole dismissed all the claims made by the chairman as he expressed shock that internal party issues that are being looked into were brought out in the media by no less a person than the chairman.
“Well, if he is bringing all these funny internal issues to the public, then we are dealing with a chairman who is too desperate and wants to destroy everything with the least opportunity. First of all, what kind of cooperation does he want? You make your enquiries from our regional executives and see what he has done so far.
According to the DCE, barely two months after he assumed office as last year as the first DCE for the area, the chairman already had issues with him because he [chairman] also applied for the same job but did not succeed.
He said,“It is interesting to know that much as I was nominated by the president and I came in and got confirmed, for him to congratulate, was out. He never did it and as I still talk, he still won’t want to recognize the president’s appointee being me in the district. Besides, in two months’ time, he raised an issue that he has issues with me. The regional executives mediated and he came in with wild allegations. And I call them wild allegations. There are a lot of testimonies to that. I debunked it and exposed his sabotage; he went silent with his team and around ending the year, barely 31st [December], they found a way to convene a forum and just peddle certain lies.”
Prof. Abole said he had to write to rebut the allegations against him until the regional executive met with them in a bid to resolve the issues but even after meeting, he has invited the chairman to attend programmes and funerals with him have failed.
Source: A1Rdioonline.com|101.1MHZ|Ghana
