Upper East Regional Minister Tangoba Abayage has attributed her defeat to the refusal of incumbent Member of Parliament for the Navrongo Central constituency Joseph Kofi Adda to campaign for her.
According to her, the Aviation Minister campaigned against her, leading to her inability to annex the seat.
“One of the things is that Kofi Adda campaigned against us. In fact, he campaigned against me and by doing that he campaigned against the party. I can say on authority and have evidence that he campaigned against me,” she said on Dreamz FM in Bolgatanga.
The defeated Parliamentary aspirant said though she was privy to the fact that the incumbent MP had waged a campaign against her candidature, she “decided not mention it in the course of the campaign because I didn’t want to demoralize people or anybody thinking that I was crying (wolf).”
Ms. Abayage in the evening of Monday, December conceded defeat even before the completion of the collation of the Navrongo Central Constituency’s results.
Explaining her decision to make an earlier concession, she asserted that her decision to concede defeat even before the completion of the process is in the general interest of the constituency.
Tangoba Abayage lost her bid to retain the Navrongo Central seat for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to Sampson Tangombu Chiragia, the opposition National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) candidate.
Mr. Tangombu Chiragia secured a total of 26,947 votes to beat Madam Abayage who only managed 15,821 votes.
The lioness as she affectionately referred to herself was seeking to maintain the seat for the governing NPP after ousting the incumbent Member of Parliament in the party’s parliamentary primaries.
Though she was confident of winning the seat, some political watchers projected her loss in the elections.
Renowned pollster, Ben Ephson who is one of those who predicted her loss explained that the acrimony that characterized the governing party’s internal primaries was a militating factor against her resolve to win the seat.
He had observed that the friction between the faction of the incumbent Member of Parliament for the Constituency, Joseph Kofi Adda and that of the Parliamentary candidate was so grievous that the party might not have been able to resolve. This, he concluded, made it impossible for the NPP’s candidate to win the Navrongo Central seat since it is not “safe seat” for the party.
