NDC Youth Accuse DCE Of Tampering With Primaries Register

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) youth leaders in the Wa East Constituency have accused Mr. Aminu Salifu, the District Chief Executive, for conniving with Mr. Issahaque Munawaru, Constituency Secretary, to deleting the names of some 58 delegates from the register of the forthcoming primaries. In a statement issued in Wa on Thursday and signed by nine youth leaders from nine electoral areas of the constituency, they said it has come to their notice that names of 58 delegates had been removed and replaced by names of persons which were not known to them. They have therefore threatened to defect to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) if the previous list of delegate names that were made known to them were not maintained. The statement alleged that Mr. Salifu had worked out a scheme to remove and replace the names of all delegates he perceived to be supporters of Mr. Mohammed Saani and Mr. Mankama Ahmed, who would be contesting him in the forthcoming constituency primaries. The leaders said they had reported their findings to the Regional Executives of the NDC but no concrete action had been taken to ensure that the right thing was done, hence their decision to leave the party. They accused Mr. Salifu for creating factions in the constituency to aid his cause to win the primaries and vowed to leave the party if he was given the nod in the primaries. Mr. Munawaru when contacted, admitted the change of names of delegates, but said that decision was taken by the Constituency Branch Executives and not him as the constituency secretary. He said the change of names of delegates might have come about as a result of the death of persons whose names were still found in the 2009 register. �Names of such persons needed to be replaced with other persons' names, saying, it could also mean that some of them had either relocated to other places, defected to other political parties or were indisposed and needed to be replaced�, Mr. Munwaru explained.