Philip Addison, lead counsel for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2012 election petition case, has picked up nomination forms to contest for the Klottey Korley parliamentary seat in the NPP’s parliamentary primaries.
The Former Greater Accra Regional Director of Communications for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Alhaji Yusif Fofana, who picked up the forms on behalf of the candidate, stated that the move was necessary.
“In fact, looking at the pressure coming from the grassroots, we decided even in his absence to pick a form for him and then even file his nominations for him. We have informed him and he’s given us his blessings. We are doing this because we believe he did very well in the 2016 elections. He put up a very good show by polling a lot of votes for both presidential and parliamentary elections. Just so you know, the President won this constituency in the 2016 elections so coming back with him as the incumbent parliamentary candidate will help the cause of the New Patriotic Party,” he said.
Philip Addison, who is the brother of the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, contested the same seat four years ago ahead of the 2016 general election and emerged victorious to represent the NPP in that constituency.
He, however, lost to the National Democratic Congress’ (NDC) Dr Zanetor Rawlings as the NPP’s polled votes were shared between himself and his contender who stood as an independent candidate, Nii Noi Nortey.
So far, three candidates, including Philip Addison, have picked up nomination forms in the hope of being selected to represent the NPP in the Klottey Korley Constituency.
Questioned about Lawyer Addison’s ability to emerge overall winner and to oust the incumbent MP, Dr Zanetor Rawlings, Alhaji Fofana stated that the lawyer would definitely succeed this time around.
“This is a battle that we are going to, but this is family war so it’s going to be on a lighter note because the more you destroy your other aspirants, it’s like washing our dirty linen in public…We don’t see it as a serious thing about life and death. We think it’s about who is well placed to win the seat for us. And I believe even they themselves know Philip Addison stands tall because when it comes to politics, when it comes to involvement in the activities of the party, he has been there all the time, compared to my other brothers who are also coming to contest the seat. So he’s well known, he’s well placed and we know with him as our candidate, we can win the seat,” he added.
After receiving the banker’s draft of GHS 2,000 which was made as payment by Philip Addison’s team for the nomination form, the Klottey Korley Constituency NPP Chairperson, Juliana Aboagye, urged that all three aspirants conduct their campaigns and other related activities with decorum so as to let peace prevail, even up to the election of one of them as winner and beyond.
Alhaji Yusif Fofana in a response to the advice explained that uniting all members of the party in the constituency will be the priority of Philip Kojo Addison.
“We first want to unite the constituency and exactly like the Chairman [for the NPP in the Klottey Korley Constituency] mentioned, we all have to resolve to make sure we go with unity; and that’s all we need to win this seat. We don’t need anything else, we just need unity.”
In the 2016 election, Philip Addison polled 43.57% of the votes losing to NDC’s Zanetor Rawlings who had 50.29% of the votes.
