Trouble looms in Tamale North NDC

For what he describes as unfair deal, lack of internal democracy, and an attempt to kill his political ambitions prematurely, a steward and a founding member of the NDC in Tamale, Alhassan Dahamani says nobody can stop his desire to lead his constituents in Parliament come December.

He has in effect declared that he will go solo after the NDC disqualified him from contesting the elections on the party's ticket.

At a durbar heavily attended by the representatives of all the 77 polling stations including chairmen, secretaries and other party functionaries within the Tamale North Constituency and the traditional authorities of the area, Mr Dahamani accepted a proposal by the youth and people of the constituency to stand as an independent candidate with their full support.

According to him, his decision was prompted by the call of the people whom he has them at heart to represent them in Parliament, a rejection of which will indicate that "I am against the development of the area."

At a press conference which was organised by the youth association of the constituency to register their displeasure and dissatisfaction on the events that led to the disqualification of Mr Dahamani, the main challenger to the incumbent Abukari Sumani, the leader of the youth association, Abdallah Danaa Napari Fuseini Brutus said Mr Dahamani's disqualification "was only a calculated plan to impose the incumbent on us."

Mr Dahamani was disqualified from participating in the NDC's parliamentary primary in the constituency on the grounds that he has not been an active member of the party for the past two years and does not have the constituency party card, an allegation the youth say "has no basis and therefore highly unacceptable."

According to the youth, they can not "afford to give in the development of our constituency to the greed of a few individuals in the party," explaining that it is against this background that "the youth have resolved that we are going to spearhead our own political and the generality of our developmental agenda, hence the call on Alhassan Dahamani to contest the Tamale North Constituency Parliamentary seat independently."

They believe that with Mr Dahamani as their leader they can overcome the various developmental challenges confronting the area which include getting good drinking water for most of the communities in the constituency, promoting agriculture to ensure food security for the people, access to good health care and promoting sports among the youth.

By slarge