General News of Sunday, 8 July 2012

Source: Daily Guide

Ursula Slaps Fritz Baffour

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for Ablekuma South, Ursula Owusu, has expressed shock and disappointment about the contents of a press statement suspected to have been issued by the campaign office of Fritz Baffour, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) incumbent MP of the constituency.

The said statement justified the recent assault on Ursula Owusu and alleged that she had insulted the Ga people during the biometric voter registration exercise and therefore deserved the attack.

It was published in several news media and sourced directly to the campaign office of Mr. Baffour, the Minister for Information.

The statement noted that during the launch of his parliamentary campaign last Monday, it became “pretty obvious that the Ga people have not forgiven Ursula for insulting them during the recent biometric registration exercise, and throughout the event, scores of people kept saying that Ursula would be punished for insulting Gas”.

“It would be recalled that Ursula Owusu rained insults on the Ga people; saying that they are “useless” people who have sold all their lands to Akans and so have no right to say that people who do not reside in Odododiodoo cannot register and vote there.

“Of course, Ursula was given a few slaps by a few young Ga boys who were not prepared to allow Ursula to get away with her insults on Gas, in the heart of Accra,” it concluded.

The contents have prompted Ursula to issue a response, describing the statement as “infantile” and one that draws “amusement”.

“Instead of assuring the anxious constituents of Ablekuma South that he will advocate their cause and seek a resolution of their many problems, to merit their continued trust in his competence, Fritz Baffour and his campaign team rather decided to descend into the gutter and spew lies and totally discredited propaganda about the universally condemned attack on me at Odododiodoo during the registration exercise,” Ursula noted.

“He should be ashamed of this lame attempt to justify the dastardly violent assault on women merely educating other women on their legal right to register and vote anywhere in this country they reside in or are ordinarily resident in. Fritz should bow his head in shame that instead of joining other right thinking Ghanaians to condemn that unprovoked assault on Ursula, he is seeking solace in lies and dirty propaganda, and applauding the perpetrators who are currently under police investigation.

“As a Minister of State, he should be assuring the women in his constituency that he will be vocal and visible in their defence, instead of supporting their assailants. What kind of person is this?”

According to Ursula, “The good people of Ablekuma South are fed up with the incessant propaganda and lies of the current MP and the NDC government and are looking forward to the day when their Member of Parliament will be more interested in finding solutions to their problem of poor sanitation, infrastructure, unemployment, increasing poverty and despair among many others than in feeding them with propaganda and lies”.

“My word of advice to Fritz Baffour is that Ursula Owusu is not the problem. His headache should be how to convince the people of Korle Bu, where he sleeps on the Board of the Hospital and does nothing; Korle Gonno, where he zooms past because he has done nothing for them; Chorkor where he has presided over the collapse of the fishing industry, Mamprobi and New Mamprobi which have seen no improvement under his tenure; Gbegbeyise, Shiabu and Glefe where he is deceitfully claiming credit for infrastructure developments begun by the NPP administration and long suffering Dansoman which is patiently enduring the shoddy construction of a road which has destroyed livelihoods of shop owners and businesses along it,” she stated.