Lawyer Lamtiig Apanga, a parliamentary aspirant of the National Democratic Congress in the Nabdam Constituency has described as unfortunate, comments allegedly made by Member of Parliament for the area Dr Mark Kurt Nawaane which described him as a pawn who secretly filed his nomination forms.
He was also reportedly accused of sparking a euphoria with a rented crowd made up of members of the governing New Patriotic Party.
Shortly after filing his parliamentary nomination forms at the constituency office of the National Democratic Congress to seek re-election as member of parliament, Dr Mark Kurt Nawaane took to Facebook and wrote “I want to thank Nabdams for their show of love. About 400 of the 450 delegates in Nabdams accompanied me to walk the 4km journey to file my papers. My contestant abandoned his plan and went and filed nicodemusly. He was later seen celebrating with a rented crowd suspected to be NPP. The battle is drawn and he will soon realise that he is a pawn in a chess game. The Lord is my shepherd”.
The social media post according to Lawyer Lamtiig Apanga was targeted as his person and campaign since he was the only contender who filed his nomination forms on the same day the incumbent Member of Parliament did.
Lawyer Lamtiig noted that the comments of the MP have the tendency to disturb a decorous campaign and internal election that is expected of all contestants in the upcoming primaries of the party.
“I find his post very unfortunate. The inaccuracy of 400 out of 450 delegates that followed him is not really my issue. It may be a genuine mistake from his side and so am not too concerned about that. However, the description of the mode of my filing as nicodemus is very unfortunate,” he said in an interview on Dreamz Fm’s News Digest.
He explained that the date and time of his filing was publicised long before the day and received the necessary support from delegates and members of the party who thronged his house to accompany him to the party office.
“I noticed the crowd in my house and I noticed that if I should carry all this crowd to the party office, it could be a source of worry and crowd control would be a problem. The police had assigned four policemen to us but that could not be enough. So, six of us including myself took 2 vehicles and drove to the party office and luckily for us we met all members of the electoral committee. They inspected all our documents and by 10:30am we had finished filing and we drove home. We then organised our crown and went round. So for him to describe that as nicodemus, it’s very unfortunate,” Mr Apanga said.
The private legal practitioner further argued that claims by Dr Mark Kurt Nawaane that he engaged a rented crowd to parade the streets of Nabdam on the day of the filing is baseless adding that “He [Nawaane] went to the point of saying that our crowd was made up of NPP supporters. That tells you that I’m an attractive candidate. A candidate that can get people from both parties to join him is an attractive candidate. What we need for the NDC is to increase our votes and we are not going to get the votes from the sky. As far as I’m able to attract people from the NPP then I’m a more attractive candidate who can assure the NDC and John Mahama victory in 2024”.
