As Election 2016 gets closer, the Lower Manya Krobo Constituency of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Eastern Region has started warming up with campaign rallies.

Three of such rallies which were held at Kpong Parkson, Kpong Ahudjo and Nuaso attracted very large crowds of party supporters and sympathisers.

The most interesting aspect of the rallies which started in a form of warm-up was that members of the party who seemed to have deserted the party in the 2012 election for one reason or the other were seriously on board this time. One of such members who is also the leader of the warm-up campaign team is the former Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency, Mr Michael Teye Nyaunu, aka MTN.

Anytime Mr Nyaunu, who is also known in the constituency as political Maradona, took the floor, the rally went quiet as many people wanted to listen to his political ideologies which he intermittently interspersed with Dangme proverbs and illustrations.

At the rallies, Mr Nyaunu used the opportunity to call on all the NDC activists to come out in their numbers on  December 7 and vote massively for the NDC to continue with the development the party has started.

President’s critics

He said all the critics of President Mahama and his NDC-led government were not objective.

“If you are really objective and see the development going on in the constituency, then remember His Excellency John Dramani Mahama  and Mr Ebenezer Okletey Terlarbi and give your votes to them in order to complete the agenda set,”Mr Nyaunu stressed.

The former MP explained that in the 2012 election, NDC got 31,000 votes but considering the increase in the youth that had qualified and registered to vote and the fact that there had been a low death rate in the constituency, he was expecting  60,000 votes in the constituency in favour of the NDC.

According to Mr Nyaunu, Krobos had not been disappointed by the NDC government due to the physical infrastructure development and the numerous road networks going on.

“We the Krobos must express our gratitude to the government for the execution of various projects,’’ Mr Nyaunu added.

He mentioned in particular the Odumase-Krobo to Oterkporlu road, the Asesewa, Yilo Krobo town roads, and the main Somanya to Kpong road which were being asphalted for the first time in 60 years, adding that  “these are some of the concrete examples why you need to give your mandate to the NDC party.’’

The former Deputy Speaker for the ECOWAS Parliament also counted numerous school infrastructure and health facilities, including CHPS centres that the government had built, and called on the three Krobo areas, Yilo Krobo, Upper Manya Krobo and Lower Manya Krobo, to remain faithful and loyal to the NDC cause, stressing that “the New Patriotic Party with Nana Akufo-Addo has virtually nothing good to offer Ghanaians and all their promises are vain.”

He said the NDC government understood the old adage that we are our neighbours’ keepers and that was why they were social democrats. He explained that on the contrary, the NPP believed that the rich should be richer and the poor, poorer hence the NPP did not understand the language of the ordinary citizen.

He ended with a Dangme adage: “He piami yee pe pa,’’ which literally means regret is more painful than a sore that is not healed.

General Mosquito

The General Secretary of the NDC, Mr Johnson Asiedu Nketia, who was returning from Ho, suddenly also stopped at the rally at Nuaso. He spent some time with the party faithful and urged them to intensify their campaign strategies to win the election in December. He said there was light at the end of the tunnel for the NDC and what was needed was a good campaign devoid of insults and name calling.

The MP for the Lower Manya Krobo Constituency, Mr Ebenezer Okletey Terlabi, for his part, asked the branch executive of the constituency to move from house to house and “win souls’’ for the party to increase this year’s votes for the President and himself.

He said “we have got to the stage where every member of the party should get involved in order to win this year’s election convincingly.’’

Other people who spoke at the meeting were the Lower Manya Krobo Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr Jacob Frederick Kwame Acolatse, and the Lower Manya Krobo Constituency Chairman, Mr David Walter Hormenu.

Source: graphic.com