Wayo Seini is hot

No real political bonus for resignation Cold shoulders for our prodigal brother Wayo Seini endures serious body blow and negative backlash IF Prof. WAYO Seini was expecting red carpet for his double somersault exhibition in full session of Parliament, he must be the most disappointed man in Ghana today.

His bombshell of a resignation which ricocheted across Parliament House last Friday when he resigned from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and attempted to immediately walk into the embrace of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) has rather triggered political bedlam for him politically, as the collateral damage that his action was intended to inflict ended up in his face.

Already, the NDC is having problems sorting out a mad rush of candidates for the position of MP for Tamale Central, which is a done deal as far as the largest opposition party is concerned.

Quick on their feet in doing an instant cost-benefit analysis, the NPP grudgingly, probably reluctantly, welcomed him back to the fold from whence he had always belonged. But party chiefs, Messrs. John Boadu, National Youth Organiser and Nana Ohene Ntow, literally recoiled from spreading the welcome mat with characteristic aplomb.

Mr. Boadu observed that the implications are not that simple because the real dividend would have to come from the constituency where Prof. Seini got his mandate, and it really is not as simple as was being made out to be. He was quick to point out that the 'acrobat' professor has to join the party at the grassroots, which is the polling station level, to re-apply for membership.

Evidently this is a grace-to-grass situation for the university don who was once the 2nd National Vice Chairman and a founding member of the ruling NPP, having to queue up from the bottom.

Party Chief Scribe, Nana Ohene Ntow was even less fulsome. He accurately analysed when pushed by Joy FM that, it is only natural that people would quickly recall the antics of another political black sheep, the late Alhaji Inusah, and be suspicious of Seini's move.

He said that a lot depends on how the party would collectively adopt a stance on how to deal with the issue.

The implications are that it would probably end up costing the NPP the additional expense of finding already scarce resources to fight a bye-election that Wayo Seini's resignation has caused in a constituency that is obviously hostile to the NPP and which the NDC has an overwhelming advantage, primarily because of the death of the Ya Na, the Overlord of Dagbon.

Ms. Akua Dansua emphatically said the NDC was going to take back the seat any way.

John Mahama was sorry for Wayo Seini while the Minority Leader, Alban Bagbin expressed shock at the sudden resignation of the professor, adding that he (Wayo Seini) should have alerted the NDC leadership.

Gentleman Mahama tried to be gracious to Seini but could not help underscoring that he fumbled even in his haste to cross over to the other side by failing to observe the protocol of going between the mace. He added that it would cost him. And as if he was reading the mind of Nana Ohene Ntow, he observed that ' I am very afraid he is following in the footsteps of Inusah' But other members of the minority were extremely scathing- ' For a Dagbon man, this is the most disgraceful act for him to do without sparing a thought for the late YaNa even while he still remains unburied. The children and grandchildren will never forgive him for bringing such disgrace to them.'

This man will never know peace' Some sections of the academic community to which Seini had been a faithful member accused him of playing politics of the belly.

With the dust on the minority's boycott of proceedings in Parliament over, the focus of Ghanaian politics would be on Tamale Central Constituency, which the runaway MP has left vacant in the wake of his resignation.

Already Joy FM last night reported that as many as seven candidates had submitted their names for the primaries to elect the NDC candidate. Political analysts believe that the ruling New Patriotic Party's (NPP's) lukewarm attitude towards annexing the seat, sends signals that it has little hopes of snatching it from the opposition NDC. This therefore makes the mad rush for the filing of nominations by NDC activists logical, as the person who wins the primaries of the party would be an MP in waiting even before the by-election.

Prof. Wayo Seini, a lecturer at the University of Ghana, Legon, had on March 8, 2004 defected to the NDC amidst a media blitz at the NDC headquarters in Accra.

Assigning reasons for his defection, he had said that his decision to quit the NPP was informed by the fact that the NDC catered for those with revolutionary fervour and probity and accountability ideals of June 4.

He was on record as having said the NDC encompassed the various political ideologies like the Nkrumaist and Danquah/Busiast groups, and that the party was for the ordinary man and woman, the rural and urban deprived and for farmers, fishermen, traders and businessmen.

According to Prof. Seini after a three-year consultation and research into all the political parties, he had come to the conclusion that the NDC was the party that was committed to unity and the security of the country.

On Thursday, March 2nd 2006, however, the unassuming professor retraced his steps to rejoin the NPP, a party of which he was a founding member, prior to his defection.

Giving reasons for his latest defection, the Statistics Professor, who cited the violence that characterised the NDC congress in Koforidua last December and the lack of internal democracy in the party, said he was welcomed to the conference hall of Eredec Hotel by a group of thugs who physically attacked him and verbally intimidated him saying nobody was going to leave the hall safely if Dr. Obed Asamoah won the National.

Chairmanship elections and was derided for supporting Alhaji Sumani Zakari in his successful bid to become the Regional Chairman of the part in the Northern Region.

He pointed out the fact that it was the internal violence, which erupted at the NDC national congress that underlined the intolerance of dissenting views in the party in which the wishes of one person must always be fulfilled even if it meant losing respectable statesmen and women in the party.

In the midst of all these revelations, the question on the minds of keen followers of Ghanaian politics is that; how would Prof. Wayo Seini's defection to rejoin the NPP and the results of the subsequent by-election in the Tamale Central constituency affect the political equation of the country?