Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mustapha Gbande, has revealed that the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has deployed its bigwigs ahead of the by-election in Kumawu.

According to him, despite the seeming move by the NPP to clinch to power again, the NDC is poised to win. He revealed that the NDC candidate contesting in the by-election is prepared for the election, whereas the NPP does not have a message for the people.

“We’ve seen presently the NPP has deployed machines, we know that is for political reasons, they are sharing money left and right, they’ve deployed the entire government machinery to Kumawu for the past three days, whereas we continue to campaign on a clean message of hope and legacy and that is assuring.”
Mustapha Gbande

Mr Gbande stated that the NPP is merely campaigning on the message of the constituency being one of its stronghold. On the other hand, he noted that the NDC is prepared, as its expectation has been met because government is “shivering, afraid, and unpopular on the ground”.

“… So, they are deploying resources, taxpayers’ money is what they are sharing to buy votes on the ground and that in itself is a bad taste on the part of government. You have had the President himself being here, he’s deployed all ministers of state… What exactly has the government been doing in the last six years that a small by-election, you have to deploy the entire state machinery? So, clearly, government has lost it and they have lost touch with the people.”
Mustapha Gbande

Furthermore, the deputy general secretary of the NDC expressed the need for the Electoral Commission to do its work. He highlighted the essence for the police to handle matters pertaining to security of voters as the NDC will not be deploying private security on the Election Day.

NDC anticipates victory in Kumawu

Elaborating on the preparedness on the NDC, Mr Gbande stated that the party has been preparing for the past few days and putting final touches to its campaign, while strategies have been put in place.

“We have had meetings with the police to brief about the deployment plans and the various mechanism put in place to ensure we have violent-free election. Particularly, we are asking the police to brief us if there will be any joint operation, that is beyond the police, are they going to involve any other security agencies and we also want to know the various sections of the Ghana Police Service – those being patrolled, what is their limitation and those who are deployed at the various polling stations, what will be their scope of work.”
Mustapha Gbande

Beyond this, Mr Gbande indicated that the party’s expectations have largely been met because the NPP do not have the goodwill on the ground. This, he noted, shows clearly that government is not popular because it has not done any developmental project for the people of Kumawu, and that “everything you see there that has to do with infrastructure is the legacy of the NDC”.

On his part, a New Patriotic Party (NPP) communicator, Richard Nyamah, rubbished claims that the NPP has deployed state resources to canvass vote for the party. He revealed that this is sign that the NDC is losing and as such “crying foul”.

“If they have any evidence of state resources being deployed in Kumawu, I think it will do us and everybody a lot of good, especially the NDC, if the put such evidence out there. Just putting blatant statements that we’ve deployed state resources will not wash. They should tell us how and what kind of state resources we’ve deployed because for me, that will be criminal for us to do that.”
Richard Nyamah