Three Ministers down and out

....Greater Accra NPP primaries Over the weekend, three Ministers of State in the Kufuor administration, who are also Members of Parliament (MPs) for constituencies in the Greater Accra region, failed in their bid to retain their parliamentary seats, revealing thus the enormity of the task confronting the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the December 2004 elections.

For the two, especially Eddie Akita, Deputy Minister of Defence and now the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Emmanuel Adjei Boye, Deputy Minister for Transport, the handwriting was clearly on the wall. But it was only a matter of time.

The case of the third is, however, not clear to The Chronicle.

For those with puritanical religious sensibilities, the die was cast for Eddie Akita, MP for Ledzokuku (Teshie), especially when he boasted that the seat Dr (Mrs) Gladys Ashitey was vying for was one he Akita had created and, therefore, adored and worshipped like a God. He would therefore continue to cherish it, and ensure that no one picked it from him, whether that person was God or the Devil.

“I sacrificed everything for this seat. It is the god I worship. I will continue to worship it and protect it from anyone attempting to come near it or grab it,” he had boasted, when it got to his turn to sell himself to the delegates for the endorsement of his candidature.

When the charming 'Yaa Asantewaa' medical officer from the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital took her turn to address the delegates, she coolly and gracefully pleaded with them: “I am a Christian and, therefore, will do my best to be accountable to my constituents, to my party and to the state, if you elect me to serve you and the nation as MP.”

Eddie Akita failed to stand in the shadow of his government, which had improved the water situation in his constituency and was also in the process of enhancing the road network in the area. He failed to speak to the hearts of the fishing community even though he was the Minister for Fisheries and, in the end, failed to worm himself into the hearts of the delegates, losing by a single vote even when, as MP and constituency executive member, he was privileged to have voted for himself.

The heart -rending score line at the end of the contest was: Minister Akita 49, Dr. Mrs. Gladys Ashitey, 50.

Controversial Emmanuel Adjei Boye, MP for Krowor (Nungua) could not endure the firepower of his constituency chairman, Robert Bortei Bissinan, who had openly campaigned against him and sworn to edge him off the seat.

In the end, Mr. Adjei Boye lost by four votes to a “poor civil servant” earning peanuts at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Presidential Special Initiative.