NPP Girl Fights Mills Boy

Posted: Daily Guide |Tuesday, 27 April 2010

By Charles Takyi-Boadu
A leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Ursula Owusu, and Presidential Aide, Nii Lante Vanderpuije, are at each other’s throats over allegations that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) was determined to rig the 2010 polls.

Ursula, a regular TV and radio panelist, exposed what she described as the rigging machinery being put in place by the NDC ahead of the 2012 general elections.

This was after a face-off encounter with Nii Lante Vanderpuye on Metro TV’s ‘Good Morning Ghana’ programme yesterday.

On their way out of the studio after the programme, Ursula narrated that she was taunting Nii Lante that the NDC and for that matter President Mills (if he will be maintained as their candidate) would lose not less than 5 percent of the votes they bagged in the 2008 general elections in 2012, when Ghana goes back to the polls to elect a President.

This, she said, was because the trend has been the same, indicating that incumbent candidates had always lost 5 percent votes, citing Rawlings’ votes in 1996 as well as Kufuor’s in the 2004 elections.

Following this trend, Ursula stressed the belief that history is set to repeat itself in 2012 and that Mills will lose 5 percent of the little over 50 percent votes he secured in the last elections, thereby making the NPP emerge victorious.

She therefore asked the NDC to start preparing since Ghanaians would show them the exit in 2012.

This analysis brought a heated argument between the two individuals right from the studios of Metro TV, spilling over to radio station programmes, and compelling the obviously jittery Nii Lante to say in the presence of the show host, Shamimah Muslim and the production team that the NDC will not sit in laxity for the NPP to win the 2012 election and that they will use whatever means possible through ‘fair or foul’ means to win the election and retain power.

This comment compelled Ursula to raise an alarm about the NDC’s alleged plan to rig the 2012 polls.

She noted: “We will be kidding ourselves if we think they are merely going to hand over without a fight if the NPP wins, as is likely to happen, judging by the abysmal performance of the NDC administration.

“Mind you, Nii Lante is the Special Aide to President Mills, operating from the office of the President.”

Later in an interview on Citi FM’s Eye Witness News last night, Nii Lante could not deny Ursula’s claims, but only offered an explanation that the NDC would do exactly what former President Kufuor and the NPP did to retain power in 2004.

Asked what he claims the NPP did in 2004, Nii Lantey was not forthcoming.

However, Ursula Owusu denied knowing anything unusual apart from the normal voting that enabled the NPP to retain power in 2004.

Coming on the heels of supposed Commando training at various locations in the country, and the violence that characterized the Chereponi and Akwatia bye- election and run-off respectively, the NPP strong woman believes “this is a sign of things to come and we should not sit down for them to subvert the will of the people of Ghana by foul means”, asking rhetorically: “Is this also not further justification for the use of a biometric voters register and E-voting for the 2012 election?”