With the presidential and parliamentary primaries of the NDC now over, Ghanaians across the country now know what alternatives are available for them to choose from in the 2016 presidential and parliamentary elections. Over here in Nalerigu-Gambaga constituency, the NDC faithful elected a business tycoon; Mr. Issifu Seidu Baba, affectionately called Alhaji Baba. This implies that he will be locking horns with Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama of the NPP.
The constituents of Nalerigu-Gambaga are excited because they have been presented with choices that aren’t difficult to choose from. The purpose of this write-up is to assess the potentials and suitability of the candidates presented by the NPP and the NDC.
TRACK RECORD: Both candidates will be campaigning on their own track records or that of their party’s. I shudder to say that on this score, Alhaji Baba will be beaten to pulp by Hon. Alima because not only does she have a yet-to-be matched track record as the former Member of Parliament of the constituency, she’s also boosted by the numerous developmental and poverty alleviating projects and interventions of the erstwhile President Kufuor’s government that she was part as a cabinet minister. To illustrate this point, the NDC especially under President John Mahama has failed to tackle and address the developmental needs of the people of Mamprugu since he assumed the reins of government. The roads that were under construction under Hon. Alima’s and President Kufuor’s tenure have been stalled, deteriorated and treacherous under the youthful northern president, and our insouciant, incompetent and greedy NDC MP Hon. Tia Alfred Sugri. On the contrary, Hon. Alima lobbied for a Nurses Training college which is now the biggest asset of the people of not only Nalerigu-Gambaga constituency but also Mamprugu in general. She established the Gambaga Girls S.H.S, a Youth Leadership and Skills Training Insitute etc all within her four years tenure as MP. The bad roads were tarred and others given appreciable facelift just to ameliorate the plight of her constituents. The NDC has only managed to tar about 10kms of the Walewale-Gambaga road which is less than half of what Hon. Alima and the NPP did. She managed to tar 22kms out of the 56kms road linking Walewale and Gambaga. With oil revenue, the NDC has only managed to do half of what she did without oil revenue just in four years. I pity Alhaji Baba because his party has let him down by neglecting the people of Mamprugu. He and his party have so many questions to answer to the people of Nalerigu-Gambaga in particular and Mamprugu in general. Hon. Alima is the toast of women in Ghana and the women of Nalerigu-Gambaga are no exception. She assisted them to acquire soft loans, entrepreneurial skills, jobs, and on top of all she championed their course zealously. Hon. Alima is an epitome of the people’s representative because she drives her satisfaction and happiness from the smiles of her constituents and not from profit. To this end, she strives to always make her leadership be felt in all spheres of life and from all angles of her constituency. She shared the developmental cake prudently when she was MP and I get the impression that she will quadruple it when she is sworn in as our MP on January 7th, 2017-Insha Allah.
MARKETABILITY: This has to do with the acceptability and popularity of the candidates to the electorate. On this barograph too, Hon. Alima is miles ahead of Alhaji Baba to such an extent that Alhaji Baba ought to spend at least two terms in parliament before comparisons or debate about their popularity can be drawn. What make Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama endeared are the good things that she did to her constituents as their MP whiles on the other hand, Alhaji Baba is popular for the wrong reasons such as the man who produces the most expensive sachet water, the man who managed to buy NDC voters into voting for him and the man whose campaign was funded by the President, the National Executives of NDC, the Regional Minister, the incompetent incumbent MP etc. In almost every village of the constituency, Hon. Alima has done a project there or has helped women and other vulnerable groups whilst Alhaji Baba has taken an extra 10pesewas from every 500mls pack of sachet water they buy whenever they come to the urban centres of the constituency.
COMPETENCES: Our president is allergic to the opposite of this word. But until he is able to get it deleted from the English dictionary, or, he and his appointees conduct themselves in ways that portray competence, we will keep associating incompetence with them. That aside, comparing the competences of Hon. Alima Mahama and Alhaji Baba is like comparing Sao Paolo to Bolgatanga in terms of size. It is an obvious mismatch. To the objective mind, it is not debatable that Hon. Alima is more competent than Alhaji Baba. In her days in parliament, she lighted up the august house with her succinct contributions to motions before the house. She won several ‘Minister of the Month’ awards and made us her constituents proud that a true daughter of the land of Mamprugu is bearing our torch. She is a lawyer par excellence, a well-travelled social worker with international repute and a governance expert cum human rights activist. Luckily for us as her constituents, Hon. Alima has always chosen career paths that give her the opportunity to alleviate the sufferings of the masses and the down-trodden. Her NDC counterpart, Alhaji Baba, is a business mogul of impeccable standards. We are proud of his achievement as a businessman but very cautious and unwilling to trust the destiny of this constituency in the hands of any man with motives of profit; which is always the number one consideration of every businessman or woman.
TEAM: I do not know about the team Alhaji Baba will present for his campaign. On Hon. Alima’s part, she will present a united front made up of all her opponents in the primaries which included the best-ever District Chief Executive of East Mamprusi-Hon. Peter Wuni Baaga. This man has many admirable parts and commands respect and following from every corner of the constituency. The last time Hon. Alima won and went to parliament, Hon. Peter played an invaluable role and will be doubling his efforts for Hon. Alima this time around. Never mind the talks of disunity in the camp of the NPP in Nalerigu-Gambaga because distracters will always foment troubles and make mountains out of molehills. A lot of disclaimers have been issued in this regard and the latest one was issued by Hon. Peter in Gambaga yesterday in the presence of the incoming Vice-President Alhaji Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. He pledged his support for Hon. Alima and reiterated that he has always done so. He warned anyone intending to latch unto any Hajia-Peter factions to desist from doing so because nothing like that existed. Even though Hon. Alima and Alhaji Baba’s campaign teams are yet to be named, I don’t foresee Alhaji Baba’s team being stronger and united than Hon. Alima’s.
The greatest asset of Hajia Alima is however not her track record or her marketability; neither is it her competence or her strong Campaign Team. Her greatest asset is Dr. Bawumia. With Dr. Bawumia’s name, she is going to annex the seat from the incompetent, corrupt and profit-oriented NDC even though her personal qualities and advantages over her rivals will give her a big boost. Gradually, we the youth of Mamprugu are realizing that the President and the NDC want to embarrass Dr. Bawumia by winning the seats of Mamprugu. They take us for fools, abi? They broke their own guidelines to allow a PNC man to contest the Walewale NDC primaries and fully funded the campaign of Alhaji Baba with some National Officers of their party occasionally coming to campaign for him all in their erroneous believe that ONLY these people can do the trick for them. We live to see.
I want to be on record to have been the first person to officially predict Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama’s victory (Ben Ephson will follow suit) long before the 2016 elections on the grounds that:
1. The elections will be about what have you done before? And not what are you coming to do?
2. The elections will be fought on which government or party recognizes and develops the people of Mamprugu.
3. Will money be enough to buy our conscience? Or, will the sudden spending of money by businessmen turned politicians be enough to let us forget our insufferable penuries of the last eight years? And lastly,
4. Will the people of Mamprugu reject their son and daughter who over the years have been on the trenches with them and making them proud locally and internationally over the shouts of ede bee keke?
If God grants us life, we will rejoice at Nana Addo and Hon. Hajia Alima Mahama’s victory together in 2016. It will happen; INSHA ALLAH.
God Bless Us.
Author: Suayam Simon
From Nalerigu