The Bolgatanga Central Constituency Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), George Ayanore, is very unhappy about the accusation levelled against him at the recent parliamentary primaries held by the umbrella party, saying it has dented his image.
Some party supporters, believed to be delegates, launched an open verbal attack on the retired engineer, claiming he was campaigning at the voting grounds for George Gamson against the Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Isaac Adongo, who was seeking re-election in order to contest the 2020 general polls for a second term in Parliament.
The result was the chairman’s immediate evacuation from the Sacred Heart Catholic Social Centre, venue for the polls, amid police escort as the angry-looking men and women, wearing NDC-branded shirts and headgears, rushed and booed at him in the background.
George denied he was campaigning for George, and he described his accusers as an army of observers hired by a candidate who lost the party chairmanship race to him in 2018— and who, according to him, is still distraught over the electoral loss— to smear him at the recent polls with unfounded finger pointing.
“I will not bypass the party procedure. I’m going to go through the party hierarchy so that it can be investigated for them to clear my name, because I know it has actually dented my image and I’m not very happy about that.
“If I had done something wrong, that would have been a different matter. But I didn’t do anything. I did not do anything untoward. I know myself and many people know me. If you ask those who know me, they will tell you my character whether I’m capable of doing such a thing,” he told the media with a troubled tone days after Isaac Adongo had obtained 843 votes to renew a parliamentary ticket George Gamson’s 229 votes was not enough to secure.
Chairman gives Account of Incident
It is yet to be confirmed that the angry NDC supporters were engineered to falsely accuse the retired engineer. But the beleaguered chairman, narrating what he claimed actually happened at the election centre, told journalists it all started when he opposed an idea reportedly proposed by the faultfinders for delegates to go to the polling stands with their mobile phones.
“As a chairman, I was supposed to be monitoring the programme of the elections along with other party executives. The voting started around 8. And everything was going well until I moved a little bit towards the main gates of the Social Centre.
“Whilst I was getting to the gates, somebody came to me and asked, ‘Ah, why did you say that we should not take our phones into the polling booths?’. And I said it was a party directive. ‘It is not only in Bolga that that directive is being enforced, but across the whole country.’ He replied that he would take his phone inside and snap his vote. I said, ‘Okay, I don’t know, but that is not the right thing,” said the chairman.
Continuing, he added: “Whilst I was saying this, a group of people rushed to join him. And they started with a different topic altogether. One asked me— why is it that I’m doing that? So, I was surprised. I didn’t know what I was doing. Then, he said they said I’m campaigning for Candidate Number Two and giving Gh¢50 to each delegate. I said, ‘No. Me? I’ve never even talked to anybody about who to vote for because I know the party guidelines as a chairman.”
The development, he said, escalated into a row that attracted some delegates and police officers who advised him to leave the premises immediately.
“Whilst I was saying this, they started making a lot of noise and attracting people to the place. I realised that it was an orchestrated plan to disturb me. Most of them were not delegates. I attempted moving away from them. One of them held my hand. The police saw that, some peace-loving delegates also came, and they all advised me to leave the place. The police escorted me to my vehicle. So, I left.
“When I was leaving, some of them were hooting at me. But I know those people to be people who did not support my cause when I was campaigning to become the Constituency Chairman. They were supporting another candidate and, because of the fact that their candidate lost, they have been peeved since 2018. So, I think that was just an opportunity for them to disturb me. I will tell you that I never spoke to anybody about voting for one or the other. I can swear by my God that it was not true. I’m a responsible chairman,” he stated.
NDC Members Back Chairman’s Statement
When the chairman spoke to the press, some NDC supporters stood up for him, generally describing the accusation as fabricated just to tarnish his reputation.
“It is totally untrue. It’s false that Chairman was going round telling people to vote for a particular candidate. That is totally untrue. Anybody who knows Chairman knows who he is and [that] he will never do such [a] thing.
“I want to use this opportunity to tell the general public to disregard it [and] to also send a warning to the NDC members that we have a battle ahead of us and that is the 2020 general elections [where] we need to wrestle power from this incompetent Akufo-Addo Administration.
“We are supposed to come together and strategise towards [wrestling] the power rather than trying to dent our own [image]. We need to work hard. Some of these things affected us in 2016. We should let unity prevail,” said an NDC activist, Timothy Ataaya.
Adding his voice, an NDC financier, Adavuta Abane, warned the “false accusation” could cost the party some fortunes in 2020 at Sumbrungu, an NDC stronghold, because that large suburb of the constituency is the hometown of the troubled chairman and he is very influential there.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm.com.gh/103.5FM/Edward Adeti
