The Upper East Regional Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Anthony Namoo has attributed the party’s abysmal performance in the 2020 Elections in the region to false narratives peddled by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and its candidates.
According to him, the NDC capitalized on the stringent measures government had put in place to contain the spread of COVID-19 in 2020 and the efforts to curb illegal mining in the country to peddle palpable falsehood against the government and the governing party.
At the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when government had put in place measures including the closure of schools to contain the spread of the disease, he said the NDC led by its parliamentary candidates went about, claiming that the country was infested with the disease because the government had failed to repay a loan it had contracted from China.
The opposition party, he added, had also claimed that schools would remain shut if the NPP was retained in the elections.
“Covid was one of the reasons some of our candidates lost. (The NDC said) that the president had gone to take a loan from China and he hasn’t paid and they have spread diseases. There were tapes making rounds. They said that was why we closed the schools,” he stated on Breakfast Today on Dreamz FM.
“They said schools were not going to be opened again if we won power. In Bongo, you heard Edward Bawa and his people. They were heard on audio, some of them medical doctors, the MP for Nabdam in particular and yet they went with people to perpetuate such lies”.
That was not all, he said the NDC also bused people from down to the various Constituencies, who claimed to have lost their source of livelihood because of the crackdown on the galamsey menace and asked residents to remove the NPP from power otherwise they would continue to remain jobless.
“People were bused from Kumasi to come and say that they were doing galamsey and they sacked them. And if they didn’t remove NPP, they wouldn’t get back to their work. And immediately after the elections, they ran back”.
Anthony Namoo stated that these falsehood narratives by the NDC caused his party’s poor performance in especially the parliamentary elections.
Ahead of the 2020 Elections, the governing NPP held 3 seats in the Upper East Region.
It, however, lost all in the polls and only managed to win the Binduri seat.
While acknowledging that internal issues contributed to the defeat of some of the party’s candidates in the elections, he insisted the false narratives pushed by the NDC was a major contributory factor.
He is, however, hopeful of better prospects in this year’s elections.
