The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has vowed to recapture the Walewale and Kumbungu parliamentary seats in the Northern Region in the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.
The NDC lost the Walewale parliamentary seat in the 2012 general election to the New Patriotic Party (NPP); the NDC again lost the Kumbungu seat to the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in a bye-election held in 2013 after Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, the then sitting NDC Member of Parliament (MP), resigned from Parliament to take up an international position.
The candidates
The NDC parliamentary candidates for the Walewale and the Kumbungu constituencies are Mr Abdallah Abubakari, the Northern Regional Minister, and Mr Ras Mubarak, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Youth Authority (NYA).
The party made these claims at the campaign launch of the two parliamentary candidates at Walewale and Kumbungu last Sunday and Friday, respectively.
Walewale
Launching the Northern Regional Minister’s campaign at Walewale, the National Organiser of the NDC, Mr Kofi Adams, stated that the party was poised to recapture the Walewale parliamentary seat from the NPP and win the presidential polls one touch on December 7, 2016.
He said the people of the region were grateful for what the President and the ruling party had done for them and would therefore vote massively for the party to retain power and recapture the Walewale seat it lost to the NPP in 2012.
Mr Adams said there was no doubt about the party’s victory in the December polls but urged members of the party to intensify their campaign in the constituency to ensure total victory for the party.
The NDC parliamentary candidate for Walewale, Mr Abubakari, for his part, said his six months in office as the regional minister was a clear manifestation of what he could do for the constituency when voted for as the MP for the area and, therefore, urged the people to vote for him massively to represent them in Parliament.
Kumbungu
Ghana’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Alhaji Saeed Sanari, who launched Ras Mubarak’s campaign for the Kumbungu seat, urged the people of the area to vote for Ras Mubarak and President John Dramani Mahama to continue with the good works.
The former NDC MP for Kumbungu and one-time running mate of the NDC, Alhaji Mohammed Mumuni, who is spearheading Mr Ras Mubarak’s campaign in the constituency, also called on the people of Kumbungu to vote for the NDC for the constituency to maintain its status as a stronghold of the NDC in the region.
Mr Ras Mubarak, for his part, said the NDC was committed to youth development, hence the appointment of several young people to key positions in government, and added that one of the key areas the NDC government would tackle, should it retain power, would be job creation for the youth and their development, and that already the government had put in place several policies and programmes to empower the youth.
He, therefore, urged the people, especially the youth, to vote massively for the party to continue with the good works.
Keen contest
The Walewale Constituency would be one of the constituencies in the Northern Region where the contest for the parliamentary seat would be keen.
The Northern Regional Minister, Mr Abdallah Abubakari, is contesting the parliamentary seat on the ticket of the NDC while the incumbent NPP MP, Dr Sagre Bambaagi, is seeking re-election.
What has made the contest for the parliamentary seat in the Walewale Constituency hotter is that the running mate of the NPP, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, hails from the area.
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