Leaders of Friends of Adam Mahama FOAM, a group formed by friends of the late Upper East Regional Chairman, Adams Mahama, has said the group is been formed to fulfil the wish of the late chairman by capturing at least seven of the parliamentary seats in the Upper East Region and increase the votes of their Presidential candidate, Nana Akuffo Addo.
According to them, the group is formed on the template of ideologies and targets of the late chairman who was working for the betterment of the New Patriotic Party’s fortunes in the upper east region.
Speaking to a1radioonline.com on the side-lines of the inauguration of the group, leading member of the group, Kareem Ahmed Bediako noted that over the years, the strategy of the NPP has been organizing big rallies and visiting constituencies where their fortunes were better but FOAM which is working on the template of Adams Mahama’s strategies is going to expand their reach by visiting and campaigning in constituencies where the numbers have always been unappreciable in previous elections.
“We have noticed that in upper east we have 312 electoral areas and out of these we have decided to depart from the normal convention whereby we organize big rallies and go to areas where NPP members are so we go and chat with them and we say we are campaigning, no that is not what we want to do! We have identified 200 out of the 312 electoral areas in the upper east region and we challenge ourselves that that is where we want to work. We don’t want constituencies where NPP have been wining, we are going to constituencies that NPP is not doing very well,” he said.
He noted that when the late chairman was alive, he worked hand-in-hand with individuals who were not members of the NPP to get them to defect to the NPP so that is what as a group, they seek to do.
In doing this, Mr. Bediako mentioned that the group has a finance team which has been tasked with fundraising to support the activities of the group in order to resource their members which is mainly made up of the youth to visit every nook and cranny of the targeted constituencies in order to whip up the interest of people in voting for the NPP.
Although he was not willing to disclose the names of the constituencies earmarked to be won by the party, he expressed the group’s optimism at wining those constituencies and increasing the number of votes for the Nana Akuffo Addo.
“If I give you the constituencies we are targeting, I have sold out our strategies but we believe 100% that the signals that we are getting and the commitment levels of the NPP members we believe strongly that our target is achievable and we are going to achieve it.”
In fending off the perception that the group is been formed to usurp the powers of the NPP campaign team in the region, Ahmed Kareem Bediako said “we are working very closely with the regional executives, in fact the regional executives were with the regional chairman who gave us his word.”
On his part, the parliamentary candidate for the Bolgatanaga Central Constituency, Rex Asanga in inaugurating the group expressed his joy at the formation of the group to pursue the vision of the late Chairman Adams. He called on members of the group to believe in themselves and sacrifice for the NPP to win power in 2016 because those were what Adams Mahama stood for.
He reminded the group of the work ahead since they have decided to be in the shoes of the late chairman, underscoring the need to work very hard to get NPP to power to save the country from trouble.
By: Offei-Akoto Ayeh | A1RADIOONLINE.com | GHANA
