VEEP Enemies Exposed In Bole

The desperation of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to wrestle power from the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has taken a new dimension of smear campaign on the part of the former, this time targeting the presidency, precisely the Vice President, John Dramani Mahama, which is emanating from his home town, Bole, in the Northern Region.
Having failed to garner any support for the ‘dying’ party in the Northern Region, the NPP is now using development as the basis of attack on the personality of the vice president of the republic. The reality however is that the Bole district of the Northern region has enjoyed massive development projects with the support of the vice president. But the NPP is busy using some of its paid papers to attempt to run down the popularity of the vice president from his home region with the claim that he has not done anything for the people of Bole.
The smear campaign against the vice president is being waged under the guise that he failed to provide the area a teacher training college he promised them.
The Catalyst took the trouble to visit the district of Bole to find out for itself the truth or otherwise of the matter. The falsehood was published in a national daily under the caption “Veep House On Fire” with the complaint that there is lack of development in Bole and that “we are prepared to lay down our lives to defend this project (training college) which will be of great benefit to posterity.”
According to the publication, the people of Bole are prepared to hit the streets in what they term ‘marathon demonstration against the NDC government to press home their demand for better treatment and fair share of the national cake”.
The Catalyst can state on authority that this is nothing but a hoax put out there by the NPP and its misguided activists in the Bole district. The paper has discovered that the publication was the work of a frustrated NPP activist, Edward Yakubu Hardi, who is also an assembly member for Domange electoral area of the Bole district.
Elucidating the true state of affairs to The Catalyst over the weekend, the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Bole, Alhaji Sampson Abudu, said the idea of the training college for the area was started during the celebration of Damba festival in the year 2008 before the NDC took up the mantle of leadership of the country on January 7th 2001.
According to the DCE, the idea was mooted at the festival by the Concerned Youth of Bole where he (now DCE) then in opposition even contributed GH¢200 towards the funds for the project. He said donations and pledges in particular amounted to GH¢45,000.00, adding that the chief of Bole, on his part, promised to donate land for the construction of the teacher training college.
“The vice president was not in attendance and therefore could not have made any promise of giving the area any training college. After the function till date the idea for the establishment of training college fizzled out,” he noted.
According to the Bole DCE, it was at a meeting of DCEs in the Gonjaland area with the Vice President, where they spoke again about the need for the establishment of a training college to the vice president without specifically mentioning where to locate it.
“In fact it was the East Gonja DCE who even suggested that given the nature of the area, there is the need for a training college to be established in there. This was picked up for discussion in the last assembly session of the Bole district assembly, and the education subcommittee was charged to find out the suitability of citing a training college in the area,” he pointed out.
The Bole DCE said the idea was deliberated upon that there is the need for the teacher training college in the area. It was based on this, he said, that the Assemblyman of Nimange Electoral Area, Edward Yakubu Hardi, a known NPP activist, went round spreading the falsehood against the Vice President that the area was given a training college and it was diverted to the Buipe area, against the standing orders of the assembly of not making deliberations of the assembly public until otherwise decided.
Alhaji Sampson said the claim by the NPP and its propagandists is false and stressing that all right thinking persons should reject this falsehood with all the contempt it deserves.
This same Edward Yakubu Hardi, The Catalyst has learnt, has also accused the DCE and others of attempting to ‘kill him spiritually’. The DCE said the young man; Edward Yakubu Hardi approached him in his office requesting that he (Edward Yakubu Hardi) be given forty gallons of fuel to assist with the celebration of the Muslim festival which is commonly celebrated by the people of the district.
According to him, he told Edward Hardi that he could only afford 30 gallons for the festival. When the thirty (30) gallons of fuel were given to him, he went out of his way and hired the van of the Information Services Department and went round the township to tell the people that he had acquired thirty (30) gallons of petrol for the celebration of the Muslim festival for the people of the area.
The DCE said he accosted him and advised him to behave well and be minded of his ambition of becoming a political leader. Based on this advice he then reported the DCE to the chief of Bole who summoned all of them for hearing. It was there that it came to light that nobody ever told him he would ‘kill him spiritually’ or otherwise, and he apologized before all gathered at the Bole chief’s palace.
The President of the Bole Youth Development Association, Alhaji Mahama, confirmed to The Catalyst in a discussion that the association has on no occasion made any formal appeal to the Vice President or the NDC as a ruling government to provide the area with a training college. He said the idea of a training college was their original idea some few years back. He refuted the allegation that the Vice President is taking a training college meant for the Bole people to Buipe.
Edward Yakubu Hardi, The Catalyst learnt, has just completed his course of study at the University for Development and he is working for Otiko Djaba, the National Women’s Organizer of the NPP. He is said to be a fickle minded person who does things only for him to go apologizing.
Some of the people the paper talked to, said the NPP is fast losing grounds in the Bole-Bamboi area and are therefore resorting to the spread of falsehood to gain grounds especially against the person of the vice president John Dramani Mahama. But the massive infrastructural development brought about by the NDC in the area in the last three years has ‘dwarfed’ the little efforts put in by the NPP in its 8 years in power. For example wherever the NPP put up a CHPS compound, the NDC has complemented it by providing a nurses’ quarters. The provision of six classroom blocks can be seen everywhere, hence this style of using vile attempts to smear the hard won reputation of the sitting vice president who comes from the area.