Bawumia bares teeth at NDC’s Zongo votes but…

The Vice President, one of the contenders in the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Presidential race, is threatening one of the strongholds of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC); the Zongos across the country.

Since the formation of the NDC, it has massively won votes in the Zongo communities in the country, but that situation is threatened with the possibility that Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, will be leading the NPP in 2024, as its Presidential candidate.

“The Zongo’s are saying something beautiful and interesting. They say they don’t believe the NPP will bring Dr Bawumia as flagbearer. But they also say, if you bring Dr Bawumia, they will vote for him,” said the Vice President ,while speaking in the Oti Region last Friday.

Zonog is an Hausa term meaning the camping place of a caravan or the lodging place of travelers. In Ghana, Zongo is a type of settlement in most Ghanaian towns. They are densely populated mostly, but not only by people who come from different parts of West Africa, who identify as Muslims and who speak Hausa, but others.

Dr Bawumia turned the “showdown” comment by Kennedy Agyepong into a warning to the opposition NDC, to the excitement of delegates, as he resumes his nationwide constituency tour in the Oti Region, following the NPP Super Delegates Conference, which he won by a wide margin, securing 68percent of the votes.

The Vice-President, gave the delegates a number of reasons he is the best person to lead the NPP, and defeat the NDC in next year’s elections due to the threat he poses to the NDC in their strongholds.

He added: “When you look at the North and the Zongo, these strongholds of the NDC will fall if Dr Bawumia is elected the flagbearer. These two will fall, and when they fall, the NDC cannot win the election. In the Volta Region too, I will get more votes.”

“Their strongholds will shake when Dr Bawumia is the flagbearer. They know it that is why they are so scared of Dr. Bawumia. They know that I will give them a showdown,” Dr. Bawumia said, amidst his characteristic laughter, and cheers from the delegates.

But he and the NDC’s Director of Conflict Resolution, Dr Abraham Amaliba, appear shadowboxing each other ahead of the 2024 general

Dr Amaliba, has been parrying the jabs, saying the opposition party is not afraid of him and is thus not bothered if he becomes flagbearer of the governing party or not.

Dr Amaliba, on news analysis programme, The Big Issue on Citi TV, Saturday, said the NDC would have been afraid if Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen, had become flagbearer of the NPP.

“Dr Bawumia is the least person that the NDC is afraid of. Indeed, we would have been afraid of Alan more than Bawumia… Indeed, for us, if Bawumia emerges the winner, our campaign will be much easier than if it were Alan Kyerematen.”

Mr Amaliba, also expressed concern with the issues Alan Kyerematen raised for which reason he withdrew from the NPP’s flagbearer race.

“The withdrawal of Alan together with the reason he gave for me is a scar on the conscience of our democracy. Alan is not talking about numbers… Alan talks about intensity of intimidation and threats. And when you are going for internal elections, and you bulge out one’s eye how does that make it better… And that is just the preliminary one. How about the other one they are going to do in November. How many eyes will they bulge out?”

“Alan did not talk about numbers, he said the intensity of threats and intimidations has never happened in their party before,” he stated.

Mr Kyerematen withdrew from the NPP’s flagbearership race on September 5, 2023, thus leaving Dr Bawumia and three others for the NPP’s presidential primaries in November 2023.

The opposition NDC, has already elected John Damani Mahama as its flagbearer for the December 2024 polls.