Dome-Kwabenya constituents shocked by ‘absentee’ Adwoa Safo’s 4th term bid

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The announcement by the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for the Dome-Kwabenya constituency, Hon. Sarah Adwoa Safo to join her party’s upcoming parliamentary primaries ahead of the 2024 general elections has generated mixed reactions from residents and left many party faithfuls across the divide in shock.

 

On Friday, August 11, the three-term lawmaker and former Gender and Social Protection Minister disclosed during her media briefing after visiting some chiefs in the constituency that she is gearing up to contest in the NPP’s parliamentary primaries, saying she still has some goodwill and hopes to build on that to win the seat once again. “As we toured, you saw the enthusiasm, happiness and the good reception that I still have with my people. It tells you that I still have some goodwill in the constituency so I will build on that definitely when the time comes. I shall not desert my people. I shall represent them again by God’s grace”, she disclosed.

 

Hon. Adwoa Safo was first elected as MP in 2012 and went ahead to retain the seat in 2016 and 2020, seeing off competitions from the NDC’s Sophia Ackuaku, Nurudeen Mohammed and Faustina Elikplim Akurugu in the respective years.

 

Following the disclosure on Friday, some party loyalists from the NPP and NDC in the constituency have expressed their displeasure at the news, in light of her months of ‘truancy’ in parliament, coupled with several complaints of her seeming absence in the constituency.

 

Reports available to DFS Live News indicate that many NPP polling station executives in Ghana’s largest constituency do not have the MP in their good books. The executives cited neglect and general lack of assistance from their parliamentary representative to the party and the constituency as a whole as their reason for standing against her candidature in the crucial general elections on 7th December 2024. On the other side of the divide, the NDC executives who spoke to this paper wondered what the lawmaker is seeking a comeback for after spending months in the United States with no due permission and explanation to the constituents, leaving the constituency with little developmental projects over the years.

 

Meanwhile, a local-based polling think tank, Global InfoAnalytics has warned against replacing Adwoa Safo in the NPP’s parliamentary primary. Mr. Musa Dankwa, the Executive Director of the polling tank, insists that the current NPP MP still represents the party’s best hope for the next election. “If Sarah Adwoa Safo doesn’t contest, it will be an open race between the two political parties. Dome-Kwabenya which is one of NPP’s strongholds has been stronger under Sarah Adwoa Safo. If Adwoa Safo is not on the ballot paper in the 2024 general elections, believe me, the race will be tough”, he predicted in an interview on Citi TV earlier this year.

 

Attorney-General and minister of Justice, Godfred Dame Yeboah, Lawyer Sheela Takyi Oppong, a Presidential Staffer and Mr. Mike Oquaye Jnr of the Free Zones Board are the other big names tipped to pick Nomination Forms for the parliamentary primaries as earlier revealed by DFS Live News.

 

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in May elected Mrs. Faustina Elikplim Akurugu as its Parliamentary Candidate (PC) having represented the party in the 2020 elections, polling 52,262 (40.64%) against 75,041 (58.35%) by Sarah Adwoa Safo.