Majority of New Patriotic Party (NPP) delegates in the Bekwai constituency of the Ashanti Region have snubbed the incumbent member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency, Joseph Osei Owusu (Joe Wise) when he visited the constituency to campaign for commissioner of police (COP) George Alex Mensah (Rtd), one of the four persons contesting in the NPP’s 27 January 2024 parliamentary primaries.
Mr Osei Owusu after serving as MP for the Bekwai constituency for four terms (16 years), will no longer contest in the December 2024 general election to represent the constituency in Parliament but has instead decided to support the candidature of (COP) George Alex Mensah (Rtd) much to the displeasure of the delegates of the Bekwai constituency.
Some of the delegates who refused to attend the campaign meeting organized by Joe Wise as part of his three-day tour of the constituency from 9 to 11 January 2024, told journalists that their sitting MP, Joe Wise, is supporting COP Mensah because he is preparing the grounds to get his alleged female friend, one Perpetual Agyemang, to contest the Bekwai parliamentary seat after COP Mensah has served a term as the MP for the constituency.
Mr Osei Owusu’s attempts to campaign in the Koniyaw, Dotom, and Asokore electoral areas in the Bekwai Constituency, for example, were met with stiff resistance from the youth in the community. The youth pointed out that Joe Wise over the last 16 years has done very little for the constituency and that he should exit peacefully and allow the constituency to independently choose their own MP.
The youth in Koniyaw, Dotom, and Asokore electoral areas went as far as to say they are banning the sitting MP, Joseph Osei Owusu, from coming to their towns and villages to campaign for the retired COP, Alex Mensah ahead of the 27 January 2024 NPP parliamentary primaries.
They indicated that they (the youth of Bekwai) want him to exist quietly and to leave the constituency to take its destiny into its own hands and to choose their next member of Parliament on merit.
In other areas such as Adjemesu, Dominase, Senfi, and Poano electoral areas, Joe Wise is said to have suffered humiliation as delegates in the constituency declined to attend the campaign meeting organized by their serving member of Parliament.
The delegates posited that MP throughout his tenure, failed to visit them or to get their roads fixed for them but has found it necessary to visit them to campaign for his own chosen successor.
