Dr Tobiga, PNC Aspirant For Nabdam

A legal practitioner, Dr Sintim Tobiga, 58, has been elected the People's National Convention parliamentary candidate for the Nabdam Constituency in the Upper East Region.

He polled 42 votes to beat Mr Francis Wongnab Mbabire, 35, a teacher, who had 28 votes.

According to a Ghana New Agency (GNA) report, Dr Tobiga, who is also the National Treasurer of the PNC and a lecturer at the Zenith College International in Accra, expressed his appreciation for the confidence the delegates at the party's conference reposed in him and gave a pledge to work hard to win the seat.

He urged the delegates and supporters to work hard to win more people for the party. He also expressed optimism that with hard work, the party would win the 2008 elections.
Mr Mbabire pledged his support for Dr Tobiga to win the seat.

The Upper East Regional Treasurer of the party, Mr Jeremiah Komla, said northern part of the country would benefit immensely under a PNC administration.

He appealed to people from the three northern regions and Ghanaians in general to vote for the PNC to win the 2008 elections to implement its positive ideology to move the nation forward.

The election was supervised by officials from the Talensi-Nabdam District office of the Electoral Commission.

In a related development, Dr Tobiga has expressed concern about the perennial water shortage in the area which affected both domestic work and grazing of animals, reports Donald Ato Dapatem.

He said the problem was so pronounced that the people had to spend quality time walking long distances to fetch water, adding that “in the dry season, some of the families look on helplessly as the animals they have spent years raising die of thirst”.

“I promise to be a strong advocate for the provision of water in the rural areas, to provide dugouts for the people in the area who are entirely farmers, ”Dr Tobiga said and expressed the view that when there was enough water, the youth would engage in tomato and onion farming in the dry season.

This, he said, would stem their migration to urban centres for non-existing jobs.

On education, he said the only secondary school in the area was the Nabdam Secondary School, but even that school was of no appreciable quality and because of that most of the students completed secondary school but could not continue their education due to poor grades.

He said if given the mandate, he would urge the government to relocate the school to a more spacious area, provide it with enough teachers and facilities so that it could serve the people properly and profitably.

Dr Tobiga said his third priority, if given the mandate to represent the people in Parliament, was to ensure that people in the community were properly mobilised for economic development to better their lives.

Dr Tobiga, who has assisted 150 women to secure loans, said he planned to mobilise the people into groups and solicit financial assistance in the form of loans from non- governmental organisations (NGOs), embassies and high commissioners to assist the people to undertake profit making ventures.

He said when the women in the area were economically empowered, they would be in a position to help their children remain in school till they completed. He gave the assurance that he would do all these without political considerations.

He said an independent body would administer all the schemes, including a scholarship package for brilliant students, to ensure that political affiliation did not become a hindrance to genuine applicants.