Adam Mohammed Baantima, the Northern Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), also known as Chairman Samba, has held political dialogue with all 28 parliamentary aspirants of the nine ‘orphaned constituencies’ in the Northern Region that conclusively ended up with each of them signing an undertaking to support and assist each other after the eventual winners of the primaries conducted on September 28.
The dialogue was at the behest of the regional chairman to assure the contestants of his neutrality and that of the party in their various ‘orphan constituencies’ and also to lay bare his ground rules to the contestants.
This is a bid to curb the unfortunate scenarios whereby defeated aspirants in the parliamentary primaries end up sabotaging the fortunes of the party at the constituency level by filing as independent candidates or collaborating with other parties to defeat the party’s candidates.
Mr Baantima reiterated that even though the General Secretary of the party had issued guidelines and modalities for the conduct of the elections which were successful, initiated the idea of signing the bond to protect the interests of the party.
“I am very much delightful for your absolute cooperation and agreeing with my decision and signed the undertaking without any reservations or protest which marks the forward march of the party towards the 2020 elections without any inhibitions but worker harder in unison to claim the ‘orphan constituency’ seats.
“I congratulate both the victors and the vanquished and I assure you of my commitment, determination and dedication in terms of logistics and funds to enable you to work effectively and efficiently in our quest to retain power in 2021.
“Even though the Northern Region has now been split into three, our agenda of winning 22 seats from the available 31 in the three regions, namely, Northern, North East and Savannah regions remains alive,” Mr Baantima touted.
Responding, the parliamentary primary contestants lauded Mr Baantima and his colleague regional executives for the unbiased and proactive manner they handled the electoral processes in the region, and vowed to become the campaign managers of the eventual winners.
FROM TIMES REPORTER, TAMALE
