JIRAPA DECIDES ON TUESDAY (PAGE 16)

TUESDAY, April 7, 2009 will be yet another remarkable day in the political history and the democratic dispensation of Ghana in general and the Jirapa Constituency in the Upper West Region in particular.
This is as a result of the by-election necessitated by the death of Mr Edward Salia, the incumbent Member of Parliament (MP) who was recently buried at Cipher, his home village.
Already, the race for the seat has been dubbed “The battle of the Dakurah’s.”
The ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has elected Dr Francis Dakura, an anthropologist while the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), has Mr Justin Dakura, an educationist and the immediate past Jirapa District Chief Executive (DCE). He was also the NPP’s parliamentary candidate for the constituency in the last general election.
What has made the impending by-elections very interesting, is the strategies being employed by both candidates to win the seat.
For the NPP activists, with a little bit of initiative and a well-mapped out strategy, their candidate would win. Their reasons being that, Mr Justin Dakura had already been marketed and stood the chance of being elected.
They also argued of the absence of the Salia factor since Dr Dakura is not as colossal a figure as the late MP.
In addition, they claim Dr Dakura is not well known in the constituency and just want to ride on the good works of the late MP to Parliament.
However, supporters of the NDC in the constituency have debunked the claims of their NPP counterparts, saying come Tuesday April 7, 2009, the NDC would carry the day.
To them, when the late MP was ill and could not campaign, it was Dr Dakura, among a host of other party activists, who criss-crossed the length and breadth of the constituency to spread the NDC message.
They claim, he is a well-known personality who had constantly been in touch with his people despite his long stay in the United Kingdom.
“The results of the by-election is a forgone conclusion for the NDC and just waiting for the D-day,” they told the Daily Graphic.
Mr Adams Issahaque, the NDC Regional Organiser said, “We want to increase our votes from 12,000 to about 20, 000 votes”.
“We want to exceed the 62.8 per cent to almost 80 per cent in this by- elections” he added.
Meanwhile, a visit to Jirapa and some parts of the constituency revealed that the NPP is not doing much. The only visible things are the posters of the candidates.
This has given much confidence to the NDC, who have planned to hold a mammoth rally this Sunday at Han to usher in their expected victory on Tuesday but Haifa Bin Salih, the NPP Regional Youth Organiser, differs and promised that his party would carry the day.