General Secretary of the NPP John Boadu has warned a defeated aspirant in the just ended parliamentary primaries to return bicycles he retrieved from delegates after losing in the Saturday polls.
Mr. Boadu described Eric Amankwa Blay’s behaviour as uncouth, adding that “Nobody forced him to gift bicycles.”
“Was he expecting everybody to vote for him because of the bicycles,” Boadu quizzed in an interview with Nima-based Starr FM.
“He should return the bicycles else he has sacked himself from the party. I am speaking on authority. The party will not recognise him anymore. He is done with the party,” he cautioned.
He secured 44 votes as against the incumbent MP Abena Duruwa Mensah who polled 389 votes.
Obviously disappointed, the results made Mr Blay and his supporters stormed into various houses of delegates across the constituency to retrieve the bicycles shared among party delegates to cast the ballots in his favour.
The defeated aspirant who spoke to Adom News said the motive behind the distribution of the bicycles was for campaign purposes.
He said for that matter, failure to endorse his candidature means you don’t like the bicycle.
According to him, the unit cost of the bicycle is ¢300. Apart from the bicycles, Mr Blay claims to have shared ¢200 and ¢500 to each delegate and constituency executives to endorse his candidature but failed to do so.
“I’m not taking back the money but as for the bicycles, I need them back,” he said.
Some party delegates and polling station executives who have their bicycles taken back said they were very disappointed.
Speaking to Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Tuesday, Prof. Ransford Gyampo of University of Ghana Political Science Department said public funding of political parties can help to check such opulence in elections.
He said with that introduced, a ceiling can be placed on how much aspirants can spend in campaigning which when breached, they should be disqualified.
