STAGE-MANAGED DEFECTIONS WON'T WEAKEN NDC — YAKUBU (PAGE 15)

THE Upper West regional branch of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has observed that no amount of what it described as stage-managed defections by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) would weaken the support of the NDC in the region.
It said the support base of the party in the Upper West Region was very intact as people in the region had vowed to remain loyal to the party.
This was contained in a statement signed by Mr Yahaya Yakubu, Secretary to the Regional Research Committee of the party.
He was reacting to the defections by people who claimed to be supporters of the NDC to the NPP.
According to him, following the alleged defections in Kojokpere, Goripie, Manwe, among others, the committee went to those areas to verify things and realised that the defections were all false.
‘The 2004 general election result showed that the NDC has a total of 513 votes for the presidential election at Goripie and Chaihaamuni polling stations and to say that out of this number 300 have defected to the NPP at this difficult moment of their reign is untenable”, he said.
Mr Yakubu said instead many NPP supporters were defecting to the NDC in Bihee, Kperisi and Dobile in the Wa Central Constituency.
Touching on the Kojokperi defections, Mr Yakubu was of the view that the political situation in that area rather favoured the NDC.
He said the fact that the NDC had re-elected all of its incumbent members of parliament to contest the forthcoming general election spoke volumes about the unity and cohesion that existed in the party.