Rex Asanga’s popularity with the grassroots of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) shook the NPP’s constituency office in Bolgatanga Central to the core on Thursday when some party supporters flocked the office to purchase a parliamentary nomination form for him with their own money ahead of the 2020 polls.
The gesture would come as a ‘pleasant surprise’ to Asanga who was said to be in Accra as the supporters joyously told the newsmen present at the party office in Bolgatanga he was not aware of the development.
“We didn’t want him to buy a form. We want to surprise him. We did not tell him we were coming here. But we made him to understand that whilst he’s contesting, we are solidly behind him. He’s not aware we are here to buy a form for him to contest.
“On the day of submission, you will see the whole Bolga Constituency moving here and you will see that we mean what we are doing. One lady said, ‘I’m going to sell my fowl to support Rex’. It is out of own volition, not that somebody gave us money. We are workers and some are traders,” the leader of the Grassroots Supporters of NPP, Asaah Atampogbire, told journalists with a spirited tone as a Rex-loving crowd cheered loudly in the background.
The parliamentary form of the governing party goes for Gh¢2,000— an amount the supporters said took them three months to contribute for Asanga.
Asanga Closed the Gap in 2016; He will Come First in 2020— Supporters
Tall and fine-looking, Asanga, a rural-development expert, has built houses for several homeless elderly people in some deprived communities within and beyond his hometown of Sumbrungu in the Upper East region.
His years-long support for women, farmers, teachers and schoolchildren accounts for his popularity even among members of the NPP’s main rival— the National Democratic Congress (NDC). And such is the depth of his political correctness and self-restraint from the familiar mudslinging entwined with the Ghana politics that the NDC, as well as the other opposition parties, cannot say much about him except to, as they have always said openly, remark that “he is too gentle to identify himself with the NPP”.
But Asanga, after his 2016 debut, will be heading for a second shot in 2020 (if he wins at the upcoming NPP primaries slated for Saturday 28th September, 2019) at an NDC stronghold where the opposition umbrella-party supporters have always equated the NPP’s dream of winning the Bolgatanga Central seat to a fruitless search for a frog hairy in the belly. In fact, there are NDC supporters who hold a strong opinion that teeth will be found first inside the mouth of a cock before the NPP will ever be found occupying the Bolgatanga Central seat in Parliament. But the pro-Asanga supporters, full of the same optimism displayed before Asanga finished second behind the NDC’s Isaac Adongo in 2016, disagree, saying the NDC should brace for a raw shock in 2020.
“I have studied the NPP’s record for the past sixteen years and I have realised that Rex Asanga is the only candidate who closed the gap for us. Let’s take 2008 for example. The NDC won with 68%. In 2012, they won by 61%.
“Rex Asanga came (in 2016) and pulled about 39% which NDC won with 51%, meaning he has really closed the gap for us. I have the hope and the conviction that as we are presenting Honourable Rex Atanga Atareyella, with his philanthropic nature, his sense of humour, his human relations, we are going to win in 2020,” affirmed a leading member of the Grassroots Supporters of NPP, Peter Atohoba.
NPP’s Interventions will Help Capture the Seat
The 2016 parliamentary elections saw Isaac Adongo capture 25,042 (51.41%) votes for the NDC, Rex Simeon Atareyella Asanga attract 15,610 (32.04%) votes for the NPP, Thomas Akurugu garner 7,431 (15.25%) votes for the People’s National Convention (PNC), Sampson Ayindongo Akolgo gain 288 (0.59%) votes for the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Latifa Abdul-Rahman secure 174 (0.36%) for the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and Richard Ayamga obtain 169 (0.35%) votes for the All People’s Congress (APC).
So far, the NPP has sold the parliamentary nomination forms to three aspirants in the Bolgatanga Central Constituency for the 2020 polls— the two other contenders being the Municipal Chief Executive (MCE) of Bolgatanga, Joseph Amiyuure, and Emmanuel Aphour, a retired Customs officer.
The party’s Second Vice Bolgatanga Constituency Chairman, Michael Adooh, who gave out the nomination form after the leader of the Grassroots Supporters of the NPP presented a cheque to the constituency executives, said the 2020 polls would favour the NPP in the constituency because of some pro-poor policies government, according to him, had implemented.
“Even though the NDC has been winning in the constituency, the NPP has created so many interventions that can capture the seat. So many people have got jobs— Planting for Food and Jobs, NABCO. So many jobs. NDC was there; they didn’t have any policy for the youth and for the constituency,” he stated.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Edward Adeti
