Immediate past Presiding Member of the Bongo District Assembly, Duke Awinsume Anaba has narrated how the District Chief Executive of the area, Rita Atanga fired Assembly Members who had travelled long distance to attend an assembly meeting .
Duke Anaba, who was the outgoing PM and had also travelled about 760Km from the busy city of Accra to the desert land of Bongo to attend the meeting, was himself fired.
Mr. Anaba was oblivious of what awaits him home when he embarked on the journey about 5 days to the meeting in July 2022.
He said although Madam Atanga had hinted him about her plans to revoke the appointments of government appointed Assembly Members, she gave no indication that he would be among the casualties.
According to him, he had tried to talk the DCE out of her plans when she hinted him.
Madam Atanga, who had agreed to rethink her decision, did not get back to the PM to inform him about what she had arrived at but Mr. Anaba said he had picked signals that she was bent on carrying on with her plan, an action, he asserted, could deepen disunity in the party and bring the affairs of the district to a standstill.
He, therefore, decided to make an early return home with the sole aim of engaging her in person on the matter ahead of that crucial meeting to elect his replacement.
He, however, did not meet her at home as she had also left for Accra for a meeting with the president.
The PM had to continue with the distant engagement and at the same time, galvanize assembly members particularly those loyal to the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) to ensure a successful meeting was held.
Together with NPP’s executives in the area, they settled on a candidate to be presented for the election to succeed him.
This was communicated to assembly members on the party’s side and on the day of the election, the members appeared at the Assembly ready to do their bidding.
Mr. Anaba and the NPP’s executives only hurdle on the day was to get some of those on the opposition National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) side to cross carpet and vote for their candidate in order to meet the two-thirds requirement.
While on this daunting task, rumours were still rife that the DCE intended to revoke the appointments of some members.
Duke Anaba did not give the rumours much credence as he was still on phone engaging with the DCE.
But much to his dismay, the DCE arrived and announced to him, at a private meeting in the Bongo District Magistrate’s chamber, that she was going ahead with the revocations.
“She called me and told me she is sorry. She said she had heard all my concerns but she had to fire people. I asked ‘where are your letters’?”.
Madam Atanga did not bring along any dismissal letter but insisted she must pull the trigger.
By word of mouth, Mr. Anaba recounted, the DCE revoked the appointments of 15 out of the 17 government appointees including him.
This did not go down well with the affected members most of whom are party’s executives.
But Madam Atanga did not stop there. She disregarded the party’s candidate for the election and presented a candidate “she can work with”, throwing the meeting into disarray.
In no time, violence erupted as aggrieved Assembly Members went on rampage, destroying properties and police officers, who were called to the scene to calm the situation, physically attacking members.
Mr. Anaba said although he didn’t engage in the violent acts, “the people were not wrong” to have engaged in such acts.
He accused the DCE of intentionally inviting staunch members of the party and subjecting them to public ridicule.
“You don’t invite people you intend to dismiss. 2 of us came from Accra, look at the risk involved. Not just Accra, some were resident in Tamale and other places.
You don’t invite someone to take a flight, take a bus to travel from Accra to come for a dismissal letter. That’s a summersault of the whole procedure”.
He continued, “the people you’re bringing on-board are party people much so the people you’re revoking their appointment who gave you 100 percent. There’s no question of their loyalty to the party. On what basis do you take that decision to embarrass them? Put them in so much risk. If anything had happened to me on that road, what would you say? You caused it? Because if you have said my appointment was revoked, I wouldn’t even travel”.
