samia, CPP men root for Nana

Reliable information available to The Statesman says that there are more CPP parliamentary aspirants campaigning for themselves and the NPP flagbearer in the Western Region than for their flagbearer.

Chief among them is no other person than Samia Nkrumah, the daughter of CPP founder and first president of the Republic. Keen observers may have been confused when she was recently quoted as saying that CPP is not ready for the Presidency.

But Statesman investigations have revealed that the Jomoro parliamentary candidate is not alone with this assertion.

While several known supporters of the CPP were seen queuing for Nana's T-shirts in his recent tour of theWestern Region, some of the CPP parliamentary aspirants have been heard on their campaign trail campaigning for Nana and themselves.

Around the country, it is clear that Nana Akufo-Addo is winning hence the logical thing to do is to ask constituents to vote for Nana in order to gain credibility as a parliamentary candidate.

The situation on the ground is that the NPP flagbearer is widely seen around the country as the next president of Ghana

In the Jomoro constituency, NDC"s Lee Ocran is asking constituents to vote Nana Addo as President and return him as MP.

In Prestea Huni Valley, Lawyer T. Dari, CPP parliamentary candidate, is doing same.

In Evalue-Gwira, Kojo Amarh is doing the same. The same is happening in Enchi and the Sefwi areas.

It is therefore no surprise that the CPP has moved fast to reconcile with Freddie Blay for the Elembelle constituency. That Kwesi Nduom also endorsed Kufuor in 2004 is a minor excuse.

The second and perhaps most important reason is that George Aguddey left Kwesi Nduom 3 seats and as the situation stands now, the Ellembelle seat is the only one Kwesi Nduom as presidential candidate may return to the party.

Kwesi Nduom's Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abrem seat is set to be occupied by Nana Ato Arthur, former DCE and now Regional Minister.

Polls undertaken by The Statesman , as well as others by respected pollsters indicate that Catherine Afeku, Government spokesperson on infrastructure, is set to win the Evalue Gwira seat from Kojo Armah.

 This seat as well as KEEA, was ceded to the CPP by NPP in the 2004 elections.Ellembelle is the only seat which is not being contested by the NPP. But, the CPP and NPP executives are working together as a merged executive to win the Presidential elections for Nana Akufo-Addo and the parliamentary seat for the CPP.

Indications are that all is not well within the Nkrumah family. Sekou Nkrumah, who has joined the NDC, thinks his sister is wrong in joining the CPP.

"If Samia really had the welfare of the CPP at heart as she claims, she would not have left the country for many years without being bothered about the progress of the party,' Sekou told Accra-based Happy FM on 23rd September, 2008.

Two nights ago, the long running tiff between the CPP and Freddie Blay was reportedly resolved.

The disagreement which flared after the national executive annulled Mr Blay's election as parliamentary candidate for reasons which change by the hour, led to the 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament seeking redress at the law courts.

Mr Blay won, but until an emergency meeting was held on Tuesday night, the Ellembele MP's name was excluded from the official CPP list of parliamentary candidates.

Interestingly, CPP flagbearer Paa Kwesi Nduom, who is campaigning for President on the slogan yeresesamu which loosely translated means Change, currently holds the KEEA seat on the benevolence of the NPP. Dr Nduom lost to the NDC's Ato Quarshie in 2000.

In 2004, the NPP compelled its candidate, Nana Ato Arthur who had been KEEA DCE since 2001 to stand down to enable Kwesi Nduom who was a sitting Minister in the Kufuor administration to win the seat by a margin of 15,554 votes.