A New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential hopeful, Boakye Agyarko, has criticised the party’s leadership for the treatment of one of his contenders, Alan Kyerematen, at the party’s final rally for the Assin North by-elections.
Speaking in an interview on Citi TV, on Wednesday, July 11, 2023, monitored by GhanaWeb, Boakye Agyarko said that what happened in Assin North was unfortunate.
Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the organisers of the rally have been accused of disrespecting Alan Kyerematen when his (Dr Bawumia’s) movement through the crowd at the rally disrupted Alan’s speech.
Agyarko, former minister of energy, who was also present at the rally confirmed that the said incident happened.
“I was there, I spoke before Alan spoke and I was sitting next to Kennedy. It was a sad moment… It was a sad moment.
“And I think that those who planned this did the vice president a disfavour,” he said.
He advised the party’s leadership not to engage in activities that are likely to bring confusion.
“I sensed situations of competitions; you must restrain yourself from doing certain things because the propensity to exaggerate whatever little grievance is always there. So, you in your lucid moment must always restrain yourself as to what you should do and what you shouldn’t,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Majority Leader and Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, has refuted allegations that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) leadership deliberately hatched a plan to undermine one of the party’s flagbearer hopefuls, Alan Kyerematen, at their final rally for the Assin North by-election.
Many members of the NPP have berated the party’s leadership for allowing Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to ‘gate-crash’ the speech of Alan Kyerematen at the rally.
They accused the leadership of using the Assin North rally to project Vice President Bawumia’s presidential admission while undermining Alan and the other presidential hopefuls.
But Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Suame, has said that there was no plan to undermine Alan.
According to him, the vice president was made to pass through the crowd at the rally so that he would get to the platform mounted for the dignitaries first before the president.