NPP Primaries: Supporters of Adwoa Sarfo, Mike Oquaye Jr clash over register

Some supporters of the two New Patriotic Party parliamentary aspirants in the Dome Kwabenya Constituency of the Greater Accra Region clashed on Tuesday, April 21, 2020, over a disagreement on the register to be used for the party’s upcoming parliamentary primaries.

The supporters of the incumbent Adwoa Sarfo and her contender, Mike Oquaye, clashed in front of Constituency Chairman’s house at Haatso. According to some of Adwoa Sarfo’s supporters, the fight broke out after they were attacked by supporters of Mike Oquaye over allegations of an attempt to tamper with the register.

One of the accusers had said: “I am angry because around 9 am and we heard that the former chairman (Chairman Fordjour) and the secretary had created their own album for the elections and that’s only done by the National Headquarters. But these guys had gone to remove some names from it and that’s the worry and has led to this [clash].”

The Personal Assistant to Adwoa Sarfo, Nana Dubin Kwarpong, however, said the claims were baseless and that “there is nothing untoward happening.” “Earlier this morning my message went around that the constituency election planning committee is calling all the coordinators in the zones to come to

one member’s house who also happens to be a member of the constituency elections committees to go through the album so when the message came out, some members called the constituency chairman to find out from him as to whether the album for the elections had come to the constituency.

The constituency chairman answered in the negative and that no such thing has happened.” “So we decided to stay put and see what is happening so later in the of the afternoon the meeting was summoned and the coordinators went.

They are about 18 of them and 10 protested that once the album that they want them to vet isn’t what is going to be used for the election, then there is no need for the vetting to happen and that came with a lot of issues and later I think something untoward happened.

One member supposedly picked the album and members of the Oquaye’s team massed up wee smokers from Taifa and they called here pelted the chairman’s house with stones and the police came here and some party boys also came to help calm the situation so its the Oquaye team going whatever way ostensibly to win the election,” he narrated.

Postponement of primaries

The New Patriotic Party has already suspended its April 25, 2020, parliamentary primaries indefinitely in accordance with the President’s ban on public gatherings in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic in Ghana.

The decision to suspend the primaries was decided at a National Steering Committee meeting held on Tuesday, April 14, 2020. NPP was to use the primaries to elect parliamentary candidates in constituencies where it has sitting Members of Parliament, ahead of the 2020 general elections.