Confusion in Yendi NPP as Farouk and Abibata's campaign posters pop up as 2024 parliamentary candidates

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Yendi constituency is having two parliamentary candidates for the 2024 general elections as posters of both the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Farouk Aliu Mahama and MASLOC Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama are popping up on social media and within the constituency.

Both Farouk Aliu Mahama and Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama per the posters are advertising themselves as the 2024 parliamentary candidates of the NPP for the Yendi constituency.

Each of the two posters bears the photographs of the parliamentary aspirants and the 2024 flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

This confusion is allegedly occasioned by the apparent deliberate delay by the National Executives of the party in resolving the deadlock in the failed Yendi parliamentary primaries held on 27th January, 2024.

The inability of the Ntim-Kodua administration to implement or act on the recommendation by the Electoral Commission (EC) for a re-run of the Yendi election to determine a true winner, is creating more confusion, division and chaos within the party in the constituency.

It is almost 80 clear days after the conduct of the botched NPP parliamentary primaries held in the Yendi constituency. In spite of the numerous calls by key stakeholders including the Electoral Commission, the Concerned NPP Youth of Yendi and the Coalition NPP Youth Groups in the Northern Region on the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NPP to organize another open, free and fair contest for the two candidates, the party top hierarchy is yet to act.

This is said to be heightening the tension between the supporters of the two aspirants in the Yendi constituency.

The 2024 NPP parliamentary contest in the Yendi constituency was between the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP), Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama and the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of MASLOC, Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama. The election ended inconclusively due to some alleged electoral malpractices that resulted in avoidable violence.

The Electoral Commission after its investigations confirmed the malpractices and has since interdicted five of its officials involved in the practice including one Bentil Nana Deih, who was accused of stashing ballot papers of Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama into his pocket and also invalidating some of her [Abibata’s] ballot papers with indelible ink.

Judging from the various media reports, and reports from the Ghana Police Service and Electoral Commission, there appeared to be a grand ploy by some officers of the NPP party to conspire with some election officers to rig the elections in favour of the incumbent MP, Alhaji Farouk Aliu Mahama.

The key actors in the ploy included the 3rd National Vice Chairman, Alhaji Masawudu Osman, the Northern Regional Chairman, Mohammed Adam Bantima Samba, Alhaji Salifu Rashid C.O.P., the Northern Regional Youth Organiser, Alhaji Yussif Toyibu, the Regional Treasurer, Mr. Fusheini Bawah Kpana, the Regional Research and Elections Officer and some members of the party’s Elections Committee.

The above-mentioned party officers took a unilateral decision to declare the incumbent MP, Farouk Aliu Mahama as the winner of the election, against the established protocols and regulations governing the 2024 NPP parliamentary primaries, which explicitly barred all party officers and government appointees from interfering in the conduct of the parliamentary election.

It was expected that the party would also take a decisive decision to sanction those party officers who were implicated in the electoral malpractices and the false declaration in the Yendi polls, just as the EC has done.

At the moment, there are visible posters of the incumbent MP Farouk Aliu Mahama and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the 2024 flagbearer of the NPP to kickstart his campaign. Similar posters of Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia are also out on social media for campaign purposes.

So, as it stands now, Yendi constituency has two parliamentary candidates going into the December 7, 2024 elections.

This reporter has gathered that the National Executive Committee of the NPP in their last meeting held on 19th February, 2024, failed to read or discuss details of an earlier petition sent to the party through the General Secretary by Hajia Abibata Shanni Mahama. The petition had sought to remind the party leadership of their responsibility to ensure fairness, act on the EC’s recommendation and to also act on resolving the Yendi election dispute.

Paragraphs 1 and 2 of Hajia Abibata’s petition, which is available to this reporter, spelt out the established protocols for the conduct of the 2024 parliamentary primaries issued by the NPP on 22nd January, 2024 with reference number NPP/HQ/PR/2024/01/22/GS/PP, which mandated only the Electoral Commission to play the supervisory role and also prohibited party officials and government appointees from direct involvement in the election processes.

The petitioner also pleaded with the NEC to “critically delve into the Yendi election incident and do their independent work without necessarily relying on the falsified and contradictory reports from the very same Police personnel, EC officials and party officers who connived and conspired to manipulate and rig the election in favour of my opponent, Hon. Farouk Aliu Mahama.”

Meanwhile, this reporter can report that the NPP national executive committee is more or less compromised in the whole grand rigging ploy in the Yendi election and cannot therefore have the gut to investigate the matter as expected.

The NEC not only seems to support the malpractices that characterized the polls, but has wantonly failed to look at the merits and demerits of the matter in their first sitting on 19th February, 2024, but rather jumped into a hasty conclusion and has since not been able to communicate the appalling outcome of their meeting to the affected persons.

A three-member committee set up by the NEC to communicate the outcome of their meeting has also failed to do so.