We lost Jomoro seat to NPP because of Independent Candidate from us - John Mahama

Former President John Mahama has revealed that the NDC lost the Jomoro parliamentary seat in 2016 to the NPP because one member of the party contested as an Independent Candidate.

The former President made the above utterance known on Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at Bonyere in Jomoro where he was addressing thousands of NDC delegates as part of his five-day Western Regional flagbearership campaign tour.

The party's upcoming presidential primaries has been slated for January 26, 2019, to elect its 2020 general elections presidential candidate.

Mr. Mahama is among other high profile aspirants within the NDC who have submitted nomination forms to contest including the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Sylvester Mensah, and Nadowli Kaleo MP, Alban Bagbin.

Other aspirants are Dr. Ekwow Spio Garbrah; a former Trade and Industry Minister; Former Vice Chancellor of the University for Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Prof. Joshua Alabi, Goosie Tanoh and Nurudeen Iddrisu.

Addressing the teeming delegates and supporters of the party ahead of the primaries, former President John Mahama said the biometric system introduced by the party in 2016 to elect its parliamentary candidates caused harm to the party hence forced so many losers to go into the 2016 general elections as Independent Candidates.

Mr. Mahama used Jomoro Constituency as an example that the system caused them to lose the seat for the first time to the NPP.

He said the party lost the seat because the system allowed some unknown party members to take part in the process of selecting its candidate.

"In fact Jomoro was one of the seat in the Western Region NDC was occupying and lost to the NPP and what caused our defeat was the Independent candidate who came from our party because of the use of the biometric system which raised a lot of controversies in this Constituency and this was not only in Jomoro but the whole Ghana and the system caused us to lose more parliamentary seats in Parliament", he emphasized.



He, therefore, commended the Kwesi Botchwey Committee for abolishing the biometric system adding that the old system of selecting parliamentary candidates will help the party to win more seats in Parliament in 2020.

Mr. Leo Kofi Armah Amenleman lost the NDC parliamentary primaries in the Jomoro to one Mr. Thomas Yankey in 2016 and immediately after his defeat, Kofi Amenleman raised a lot of concerns about the results which couldn't be resolved by the party at the National level.

This forced him to run as an Independent Candidate in the 2016 parliamentary elections in Jomoro and managed to pulled 1652 votes.

And according to Mr. John Mahama, his votes could have helped the NDC retain the seat.

The Jomoro parliamentary seat is currently being occupied by the NPP MP, Hon. Paul Essien. This is the first time the NPP has been won the seat since 1992.

But Mr. John Mahama was optimistic that the NDC will recapture the Jomoro seat in 2020.

Mr. Mahama urged NDC party to remain united in order to recapture both the parliamentary and presidential seats come 2020.

He advised party folks to remain focus and put the party at heart and vote for him to save mother Ghana from economic hardships under the Akufo-Addo’s government.

He said the NPP created a false sense that it could out-perform the NDC in government but after winning the last elections, the policies of the government have resulted in untold hardship, with every sector of the economy taking a hit.

He said the President should desist from saying that he would not be responding to presidential aspirants, adding that the aspirants are just carriers of messages of suffering Ghanaians. "So he should listen before it is too late because Ghanaians are really suffering", he said.

According to the former president, the Akufo-Addo's led administration has failed the good people of Ghana in discharging its 2016 campaign promises made such as one constituency, one million dollars, one district one factory, one village, one dam policies.

He accused the NPP government of collapsing the agricultural sector by non-increment of cocoa prices for the past two years, selling subsidized cocoa fertilizers meant for free to farmers to boost cocoa production in the country.