THE derogatory remarks made against former Kumasi Mayor, Madam Patricia Appiagyei by the Member of Parliament (MP) for Asokwa in the Ashanti Region, Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah, appears to be whipping up support for her in her quest to unseat the MP as the New Patriotic Party (NPP) parliamentary candidate in the 2012 elections.
A minister in the erstwhile Kufuor Administration, Nana Obiri Boahen, on Saturday, called Mr Jumah to do the honourable thing by throwing in the towel over his ambition to seek re-election as the party’s parliamentary candidate, following his infamous remarks about Madam Appiagyei.
He advised that if he refused to quit the race, the party members should vote against him in the party’s parliamentary primary.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic in Kumasi, Nana Boahen, who was a minister of state at the Interior Ministry, stated that the derogatory remarks were unpardonable.
He described the “so-called apology” the MP rendered on radio to Madam Appiagyei as a mockery on his political image.
Shelving his parliamentary ambition for the 2012 election can save him the little image left in him.
It will also protect the integrity of the party in its quest to recapture power from the NDC,” Nana Boahen said.
The former minister also took issue with the Ashanti Regional Secretariat of the NPP for “condoning wrongdoing” by rendering apology on behalf of the MP to the woman.
“I was expecting the secretariat to institute disciplinary action against Kofi Jumah and not to jump to his aid. What they did is laughable and cannot hold”.
The NPP, he said, must not condone such acts, especially coming from an MP who is expected to know better.
Mr Jumah, perhaps, the most vociferous NPP MP in the Ashanti Region has been in the news since last week after a statement on radio inferring that Madam Appiagyei, who was his successor at the KMA, got the position through offering sexual favours.
The Asokwa MP made the statement in reaction to reports that Madam Appiagyei was in line to contest him in the parliamentary primary of the party.
Mr Jumah, who later apologised, insisted that the statement was a slip of tongue, and that he never intended to denigrate her.
A planned demonstration by women in Kumasi against the MP was shelved following his apology.
However, Nana Boahen, who is now a private legal practitioner, said no apology could assuage the pain caused the woman.
This is a married woman. So what does the MP want to paint her before her husband?’
The MP’s statement is also an indictment on the one who appointed Madam Appiagyei to the position of Mayor of Kumasi, by implication former President Kufuor, he said.
The former minister said if the NPP was to win the 2012 elections, then leading members of the party needed to watch their utterances.
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