NPP will win massively -Women Organiser
From Edmond Gyebi, Salaga
The Women’s Organiser of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Salaga Constituency of the Northern Region, Madam Hawa Bawa Doshie, has predicted massive victory for the party and its presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the constituency in the December 2012 general elections.
The NPP lost the Salaga seat to the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2008, due to an unhealthy division in the party.
According to the Women’s Organiser, the majority of the people, especially the women in the East Gonja District, were now feeling disillusioned and peeved, following what she described as “the total failure of the ruling government to fulfill its promise of empowering the women folk to become economically viable.”
Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle ahead of the visit of the NPP flagbearer to the constituency, Madam Bawa said the plight of almost all the women in the constituency had worsened within the last three years, and blamed the ruling party for doing little or nothing to improve the living conditions of the women.
She strongly averred that the women in the ruling NDC in the constituency now feel more disillusioned and ashamed of the government than those in the NPP, since “we already know that our party is not in power.”
“My brother (referring to this reporter), you know it is a shame and very disappointing to have your mother in charge of meal in the funeral house, and you go to bed on an empty stomach. And that is what NDC is doing to their women. They promised to make the women more comfortable, give them loans, and also empower them to become economically ok, but what do we see today?
“The voice Prof. Mills was using to talk to the Makola market women and other women groups in 2008 during their door-to-door campaign has suddenly changed, and this tells you that the NDC cannot be trusted.”
Madam Bawa, however, said the NPP, under President John Agyekum Kufuor, was able to put most of the women into groups, gave them entrepreneurial skills, and also provided them with capital in the form of soft loans.
She observed that the dire attitude of the NDC toward the women folks in the Salaga constituency had created the opportunity for the NPP to sweep the majority of the votes in the coming elections, in both the parliamentary and presidential polls.
The NPP Women’s Organiser, who predicted over 80% votes for Nana Addo and the NPP parliamentary candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, asserted that the majority of the women in the NDC, as a result of the seeming disappointment, had joined the NPP women’s groups formed in the various polling centres, hoping for a change in government.
The women groups, she noted, were formed basically, to enable them attract the needed loans to undertake their small and medium scale business, and also campaign for the NPP in their localities.
Madam Bawa also hinted that the NPP had been able reunite its members across the constituency, unlike in 2008, when there were Alhaji Jawula and Boniface factions.
The Jawula faction, according to her, was campaigning for Nana Addo, and the NDC parliamentary candidate, Abubakar Dey, who won in 2008.
But the two factions, Jawula and Boniface, had now joined forces, indicating that massive victory awaits the NPP.
The NPP constituency women’s leader alleged that because the incumbent Member of Parliament for Salaga, Alhaji Abubakari Dey, had failed to support or familiarise himself with the women, about 40% of the NDC women were now campaigning for Alhaji Saddique Boniface.
Meanwhile, the NPP presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is in the Northern Region to embark on a five-day campaign tour of the Gonja areas, and to also officially introduce his parliamentary candidates to the chiefs and people, ahead of the 2012 elections.
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