I’ll recapture Jomoro seat on December 7-Samia Nrkumah

A former Member of Parliament of Jomoro, Samia Nkrumah, says she will, on December 7, recapture the constituency she lost in 2012.

Ms Nkrumah who became the poster girl of the Convention Peoples Party (CPP) between 2008 to 2016 said she is back to capture the seat and provide credible selfless service to her constituents.

The former CPP Chairperson who exited the party in 2016 after a rancorous presidential primary said she will contest the seat as an independent candidate.

“I am back contesting to get the seat back and I’m doing so because of the good work I have done and plan for the people of this constituency.

“When I was MP, I touched the lives of over 80% of the communities with interventions like mechanized boreholes, classroom blocks. It shows what we are capable of doing,” the daughter of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah recalled her term in office from 2009 to 2013.

Ms Nkrumah thrashed the then incumbent National Democratic Congress stalwart, Lee Ocran to win the Jomoro seat in 2008 with the buzz of an Nkrumah offspring contesting for election in his hometown sweeping through the Jomoro Constituency.

She won the seat with a 6,000-vote margin.

Lone ranger 

Her stay in Parliament was not without controversy, as she insisted she wanted to torpedo the Standing Order of Parliament that compelled even independent candidate candidates to choose a side-Minority or Majority.

She insisted that she wanted to be on her own but the CPP lone ranger in Parliament settled for the Minority side in compliance with the Standing Orders of the House.

While in Parliament, she turned her attention to the CPP internal politics and won its chairperson race.

She cut a slice of history when she became the first-ever female leader and chairperson of a political party in Ghana, after winning the chairmanship position of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) at its delegates congress in September 2011.

She beat competition from experienced hands, Nadi Nylander and Prof Edmund Delle.

But a year later, she lost the Jomoro seat to a fresh face on the NDC’s ticket, Francis Kabenlah Anaman in the 2012 election. The difference was a little over 3,000 votes.

She said she lost the 2012 elections because of manipulations of the voter register to the extent that eight years after the elections, the number of people who registered for the 2020 elections were 7,000 less.

That, she observed was in spite of population increase.

President that never was 

In 2016, Ms Nkrumah took her political ambition a notch higher when she contested the CPP’s presidential primary and lost to the party’s then General Secretary, Ivor Kobina Greenstreet.

She accused Mr Greenstreet of vote-buying in the election which split the party into camps.

Ms Nkrumah accused Mr Greenstreet of bribing delegates with some GHc 200 and GHc 500 to secure his victory in the presidential primaries.

However, Mr Greenstreet denied the allegations.

With her presidential ambition collapsing, Ms Nkrumah went back to seek the blessing of the people of Jomoro to enter Parliament.

They rejected her.

She came a distant third when the NDC lost the seat to the NPP’s Paul Essien. The gap between her and Mr Essien was almost 10,000.

Four years on, Ms Nkrumah said, her chances of recapturing the seat are very positive.

She said her constituents were buying into her message of helping to improve the economic activities in the area while creating more jobs in a constituency with thousands of idle youth.

“At least 65% of the youth in the constituency don’t have jobs that can give them a living wage.

“I’m not in politics to make money. I am in because I want to promote the legacy of Kwame Nkrumah,” she told Unique FM.

Below are the results from 2008 to 2016

2016

Candidate	Result
Paul Essien(NPP)	18,694 (39.49%)
Thomas Elleamo Yankey (NDC)	14,241(30.08%)
Samia Yaba Nkrumah (CPP)	9,714 (20.52%)
Mathieu Kwao Benthop (PPP)	2,613 (5.52%)
Leo Kofi Armah Amenlemah (IND)	1,645 (3.47%)	Jemima Soboe (PNC)	334 (0.71%)	Stephen Awuah (UFP)	101 (0.21%)

 

2012

Candidate	Result
Francis Kabenlah Anaman (NDC)	21, 651 (42.22%)
Samia Yaba Nkrumah	18,110 (35.31%)
Joseph Ewoniah	9,630 (18.78%)

 

2008

Candidate	Result
Samia Nkrumah (CPP)	19,916 (50.01%)
Lee Ocran (NDC)	13,345 (33.51%)
Martin Nyamekye Ackah	6,345 (15.93%)
Jemima Soboe (PN )	220 (0.55%)