GIJ Disowns �MP�

Daily Guide has sighted a letter from the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) saying that the institute does not have any records to show that the embattled New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate for Okaikoi South, Ahmed Arthur, is a product of the school as he has claimed on official records. Mr. Arthur, in filing his nomination forms for the parliamentary primaries, stated that he had done short courses in Journalism, Public Relations and Management at the GIJ but a letter signed by Patience Sowah, the school�s Deputy Registrar dated May 23, 2011 and addressed to Vivian Addae, the NPP constituency Chairman in Okaikoi, read: �I regret to inform you that we do not have any records on Mr Arthur. In fact, we do not have any profile of him in our records on participants of our short courses in the past ten years.� The letter from the GIJ was a response to a letter from the Okaikoi Constituency Chairman to verify whether or not the information Ahmed Arthur had put out on his educational background was the truth. According to the rules and regulations governing NPP primaries, a prospective candidate shall be disqualified if he or she is found to have provided false information on the nomination forms. However, Mr. Arthur has told Daily Guide that he has another letter from the GIJ that contradicts the contents of the May 23 one signed by the Deputy Registrar. When asked to give explanations on the contents of the second letter and who signed it, the Parliamentary candidate explained that he was in an important meeting and promised to get back to the paper once he was done with it. The candidate has written to the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party to appeal the decision of a three-man committee that investigated the issue and recommended that the primary should be re-run. The committee, chaired by Ambrose Dery, Member of Parliament MP for Lawra/Nandom and Deputy Minority Leader in Parliament, indicated that Ahmed Arthur was not eligible to hold himself as the party�s parliamentary candidate for 2012. The constituency was therefore going ahead to conduct a fresh parliamentary primary when they received a letter from National Chairman Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, asking them to suspend the primaries and allow NEC to look into the appeal of Ahmed Arthur in the name of natural justice. Already, the party leadership has exhibited sheer inconsistency in the manner in which it handled the rippling effects of the Okaikoi South primaries that saw Ahmed Arthur emerging as the winner. He beat his closest rival, Vicky Bright, a former deputy minister at the Presidency in the erstwhile Kufuor administration, with 12 votes. She immediately petitioned the NPP Appeals Committee and raised a red flag over the conduct of the primary. She also complained that the process leading to the primary had been abused and due process not followed. The party�s position on the matter has swayed to and fro and remained rather indecisive, with accusations and counter accusations over which leader had taken sides and shown bias for either Vicky or Arthur. Another document sighted by DAILY GUIDE was a reply to the letter from Chairman Obetsebi-Lamptey, addressed to the Okaikoi South Constituency Executive, asking it to suspend the re-run of fresh primaries. The reply, signed by Constituency Chairman Vivian Addae and nine other constituency executive members, warned that the NPP would be subverting its own rules and regulations if it does not disqualify Ahmed Arthur but grants him pardon. �Sir, paragraph 16 of the Nomination Form states unambiguously that �please note that any false declaration shall led to disqualification of applicant��. �As you are fully aware, similar technicalities and irregularities filed by the opposing candidate, Dr. Elvis Ebenezer Donkor in the instance of Tema West Constituency primaries, led to the automatic disqualification of that candidate. We, the Executive, hereby intend to rely on this example for its full force and effect.� However, in the case of Dr Donkor, his voter ID card could not be located in the national electoral register.