A crucial executive meeting called by the Northern Regional chairman of ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mohammed Samba, was violently abrogated on Monday.
This was after the party’s women organizer, Hajia Rahana Aziz, allegedly launched a physical assault on the first vice chairperson Madam Felicia Tetteh, in the latest escalation of an ongoing feud between the two regional executives over a bungalow belonging to the School Feeding Programme.
Chairman Samba summoned the meeting for the party’s leadership in the Region to have final discussions ahead of President Akufo-Addo’s arrival in Tamale on Wednesday for the 62nd Independence Day celebration, the first of its kind to be held outside Accra since 1957.
Part of the meeting’s agenda was to address growing friction between the women organizer and the vice chairperson who doubles as the Regional Coordinator of the National School Feeding Programme.
But the meeting ended before it began with the party’s regional secretary, Sulley Sambian, allegedly having to crawl on his knees in order to restore calm and sanity in the room after the women organizer went berserk, shoving away other executives trying to restrain her from causing physical harm to Madam Tetteh, who was seated nearby.
The women organizer in her rampage accused Madam Tetteh of disrespect and called her an “outsider” who was giving away government properties to her tribesmen who were not members of the NPP.
“The chairman himself looked helpless and the only thing he did was to end the meeting,” a source who was part of the botched meeting told Starr News. “Hajia Rahana told the chairman that he could not do anything to her because her sister was a top security operative at the presidency and very close to President Akufo-Addo, so she actually rushed to attack Felicia, if not for the regional secretary who kneeled and begged her.”
There has been bad blood between the two executives since last year, caused mainly by attempts by the women organizer to take over the regional bungalows of the National School Feeding Programme. The women organizer has been bitter towards Madam Tetteh after she was dropped from a national executive position. She accused the vice chairperson of sabotaging her appointment.
The bungalows had been temporally allocated by the vice chairperson; also the regional coordinator of the School Feeding Programme, to a citizen and his pregnant wife who were facing accommodation challenge after a fire destroyed their house. But the regional women organizer accused the vice chairperson of giving the bungalows to an NDC member and vowed to force out the occupants.
Tensions began to rise earlier in the morning between the executives after the women organizer, a rookie aggressive leader, sent out party thugs to throw out the occupants and lock up the bungalows, prompting a response from the vice chairperson to go on radio to express her frustrations about the longstanding enmity and called for an end.
The bungalows still remain locked under heavy protection of the armed thugs deployed by the women organizer, despite interventions by multiple regional party authorities, including the Regional Minister, Salifu Saeed.
“So I think the woman was offended by some of the words Felicia used during that interview,” the source said. “The meeting ended with no decision taken by the party executives.”
Madam Tetteh, who is recuperating from a body surgery, declined to comment and her attacker, the women organizer was also not available for a response.
The regional secretary did not also respond to request for comment.
However, in the earlier interview granted on Diamond FM, Madam Tetteh said Hajia Rahana has disregarded everyone in the party who attempted to resolve the feud.
“The regional chairman sat us down to resolve the issue. Even at the national level, the national women organizer, the party General Secretary, the Gender Minister tried to resolve this issue so that we can work to mobilize the women front for 2020, but she came back home, went to the same quarters (bungalows), insulting me all the time she gets there; She is even going to take school feeding from me, that I’m nobody, when did I join the party.
“But look I’m very patient. It doesn’t mean that I’m weak. And you speaking anyhow doesn’t make you tough. I’m a barracks girl and tougher than she thinks she is. Me I will not talk, I will not vandalize; that doesn’t make you a tough person. If you have issues, you speak to the issues and if genuinely we are Muslims and Christians, and you say Felicia you did this and that me and I’m not happy, I will apologize for the sake of the women in the region that are looking up to us, for the sake of our party, for our self-respect, I will do it.
“But I have seen that not minding her because you don’t want to be disgraced, because you don’t want to bring the party’s name into disrepute, she thinks that she has an urge over me. No! Hajia Rahana, you never have an urge over me. Don’t see my quiet face and body posture to mean that I’m a meek person,” she said.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Eliasu Tanko
