More than a few members of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in Talensi, a constituency in the Upper East region, have vowed to inflict on the party in 2028 another taste of the shock it suffered in 2012 when its candidate, John Tia, lost the parliamentary election as a result of internal dissatisfaction.
The current Paramount Chief of Talensi, Tongraan Kugbilsong Nanlebegtang, became the biggest beneficiary of the NDC’s internal conflict, appearing on the ballot as Robert Nachinab Doameng for the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and winning with 11,380 votes against Tia’s 9,119.
It was the first time the elephant party had won the parliamentary seat in 20 years since 1992 in the umbrella-controlled constituency.
The NDC members in the constituency are aggrieved because a man they strongly do not want as the district chief executive (DCE) of the area, John Millim Nabwomya, has been nominated for that office.
They made the vow shortly after another group of NDC members had organised a news conference on Thursday, 10 April 2025, in the district against the nomination.
Nabwomya’s nomination, announced on Friday night last week, was followed by a rare midnight fire at the party’s office in the district. The announcement and the fire were just hours apart. Residents said the building was set ablaze by a large number of unidentified young men who apparently were enraged about the nomination.
Protests against Nabwomya’s DCE ambition have been raging at full force since he applied— and went through a vetting protocol— for the position. A petition, highlighting some reasons he should not be considered for that office, was lodged with the vetting committee by some Talensi natives who did not hide their identities and telephone contacts.
In a bid to secure the nomination, some individuals backing Nabwomya fiercely claimed there was no connection between the nomination and the weekend fire incident. They also painted a picture that there were no protests in the district against the nomination.
But contrary to their bold statement that there were no protests in the district, some aggrieved constituents and NDC members in Talensi announced their intentions to stage a demonstration in the streets against the nomination. To block that move, a Chinese mining company and a local bloc group said to be supporting the nominee “for some selfish interests” reportedly made some attempts to pay the aggrieved constituents and party members individually to withdraw from the planned demonstration.
While the alleged attempts to derail the demonstration were underway, another group, exclusively made up of people who said they were NDC members, convened the Thursday’s conference to voice their anger against the nomination.
Reasons mentioned at Thursday’s news conference
The first reason the NDC members gave at the presser for opposing Nabwomya’s nomination was his alleged deep and undying fellowship with the Tongraan.
They said he was “a close associate, a loyal disciple, a protégé and a devoted agent” to the paramount chief who served as an appointee of the immediate-past NPP government, chairing the board of the Tema Oil Refinery for four years.
They expressed the view, for this reason, that it was the Tongraan (a former NPP MP) the NDC government had indirectly nominated as DCE, not Nabwomya. In clearer terms, they meant that a chief said to be linked to the opposition NPP would control the government of the NDC in the district through the nominee for the next four years if the nomination secured the needed approval of at least two-thirds majority of the district assembly’s elected and appointed members.
Secondly, the party members said the nominee was unfit for that office owing to an alleged role he played as a teacher in an ethnic-related riot that erupted among the students of the Kongo Senior High School, a public boarding school in neighbouring Nabdam District, on Sunday, 21 July 2019. He was released from the school by the Ghana Education Service (GES) after a committee that was commissioned to investigate the circumstances that led to the riot found him blameworthy for reportedly inciting the unrest.
Another reason they gave was that the nominee was standing trial at the High Court ‘2’ in the region’s capital, Bolgatanga, for “falsely” holding himself out as a native of Gban, a community in east Talensi, and as an elder to the royal skin (throne) of that community.
They said the nominee actually hailed from Gaare, another community also in east Talensi, and added that he had also been cited for contempt in a land dispute that was still before a court in the region. Selecting him for the DCE position, they stressed, was a needless risk for the NDC to take given the fact that the court had not determined the cases and the contempt issue involving the nominee as a defendant.
The aggrieved NDC members further told the press at the conference that while the nominee was serving as a presiding member of the Talensi District Assembly a few years ago, he was selected alongside a former DCE of Talensi, Christopher Boatbil, as delegates from Talensi for the 2021 Council of State Election in the region. They alleged that Nabwomya backed the Tongraan, the supposed favourite of the NPP, to win that election against an NDC-preferred Paramount Chief of Chiana, Pe Ditundini Adiali Ayagitam III.
“He is a traitor. He is a wolf in a sheep skin,” they fumed in a statement read at the press conference by the NDC’s chairman for Gorogo Clinic Polling Station, Charles Luu.
More reasons mentioned at Thursday’s news conference
Citing another reason, the party members said the nominee once teamed up as an assembly member with some people in the district in co-writing a letter to a minister of lands and natural resources against Cassius Mining Company Limited, an Australian firm licensed to operate in the district.
They said the letter was a petition against the presence of the Australian company in the district and stated that the action contributed to the reasons the company subsequently filed a heavy suit at the International Court of Arbitration against the Government of Ghana.
“If he could do this as an assembly member, then he would do worse things as a DCE,” warned the statement.
The NDC members also claimed there were four traditional areas the nominee “cannot visit today” in Talensi because he, according to them, sowed “a seed of division” among them when he played a dual role as an assembly member and a presiding member a few years ago. They mentioned Namoalgu (also spelt Namoalogo) as an example of those communities.
In months prior to the announcement of his nomination, some traditional chiefs were widely rumoured to have lobbied for him with huge sums of money provided by some Chinese mining companies. The NDC members told the press they found it worrying that one of the lobbying chiefs had a disturbing justice history, having been convicted of attempting to bribe a high court judge in Bolgatanga sometime ago.
They descended heavily on the new Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Daniel Dung Mahama, saying he had been paying money to NDC members who were opposed to Nabwomya’s nomination to support the nominee.
“He (the MP) portrays John Millim as his best man for the DCE position and for that matter he would not listen to any dissenting opinions or suggestions,” the statement claimed.
The NDC members predicted the MP would go only one term, emphasising that the conduct he had started with, with only three months into office, would cost him his prospective re-election campaign.
“Already, Hon. Daniel D. Mahama talks and behaves in a manner that gives a strong public impression that he is going to lose the next NDC primaries and for that matter will be a one-term MP.
“We expect him to rather focus his strength on improving himself and addressing the unemployment, security, road network and other developmental concerns in the Talensi Constituency,” they said.
Demands from the aggrieved NDC members
The party members ended the news conference with a number of demands directed at President John Dramani Mahama on the nomination.
They said they were “reliably informed” that “the state security apparatus” gathered some intelligence while the vetting process was underway that Nabwomya was not “suitable” for the office.
They said sources also hinted that a situation report, originating from the state security apparatus, was forwarded to the National Security during the vetting process, forewarning the government that nominating Nabwomya as a DCE would result in “chaos” in the district.
“We plead that President John Dramani Mahama demand a further background check on this nominee and he (President Mahama) should demand a copy of that report because we believe the report was hidden from him prior to the nomination.
“Doing so would not only save the image of the NDC but also inure to the peace and security of the Talensi District as reportedly highlighted in the report compiled by the state intelligence agencies,” the statement stressed.
The NDC members further demanded that Nabwomya’s nomination be withdrawn “with immediate effect” and threatened to resort to “all necessary” legal actions if the demand was not met.
“We respectfully wish to state that we the members of the NDC in the Talensi District and all well-meaning people of Talensi are ready to acknowledge any of the applicants for that position except John Millim,” the statement concluded.
Nabwomya and the MP did not respond to this author’s requests for their comments on the allegations levelled against them at the news conference before publication.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
