The Northern Regional branch of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) has called for a meeting to look into allegations by Mr Mohammed Murtala that a Cabinet Minister who is also a Member of Parliament (MP) was conspiring to oust him [Murtala] from his Nanton parliamentary seat.
The NDC Northern Regional Chairman, Sofo Azorka told Atinka FM on Friday that he has co-opted two senior MPs in the region, Alhaji Amadu Seidi, Hajia Salifu Boforo, the Council of Elders and the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Limuna Muniru to meet on Monday, April 13, 2015 to go into the matters and give directions on the way forward.
It would be recalled that in an interview with Diamond FM in Tamale, the Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry and NDC MP for Nanton, Mohammed Murtala said he had an audio evidence of a plot by a fellow MP in the Northern region from his own party to oust him from Parliament.
In what appeared to be a turf war between him [Murtala] and the unnamed MP and Minister of Cabinet, Murtala also alleged on Facebook that the said MP had hired a lady to take nude pictures of a colleague Cabinet Minister and gone ahead to equip the lady with a tablet and a mobile phone to carry out the task.
Speaking on Atinka FM Friday morning, Sofo Azorka said a feud of that sort had the potential to destabilize the region and make the party lose parliamentary seats.
He warned he will not allow such petty squabbles to make the NDC lose seats, arguing that a similar feud in the past made them to lose more seats to the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), which hitherto had only three seats in the Northern region.
The NDC presently holds 19 out of the 31 parliamentary seats in the Northern region. The NPP has 10, the Peoples National Convention (PNC) one and one independent MP.
Mr Azorka said they have requested for the audio recordings of Murtala’s interview with the radio station and that they will listen to it at the meeting on Monday and take a decision.
He said whoever was found to have engaged in a misconduct would face disciplinary action and said it was mind boggling that Murtala chose to go that extent on radio. However, he said he would not want to pre-empt anything till they have listened to the tape.
“I spend a lot of resources in my constituency. I have no business in anybody’s constituency, what business do you have in my constituency?” Murtala said in the interview he granted Tamale based radio station, Diamond FM.
“They should not underestimate my reaction. If they do that they are dreaming. They should leave their constituency and come to Nanton, I will beat them,” he said.
In an angry tone, he said it was un-Islamic for people in the same party to plan how to get him out of Parliament.
He was not done yet: “I have an impeccable academic record. If they are so jealous, that is their problem. But I have a warning for them. They should not underestimate the consequences of my action. If they think this is just a hot air, they are dreaming.”
He accused his detractors of inviting the Nanton constituency secretaries and organisers to their houses and rented hotels for them (executives) in Accra.
Murtala warned that if he began to open the Pandora box, he would have no listening ear for anyone irrespective of their positions.
“No Mallam or chief or anybody should dare call me when I begin to speak out because people are so subsumed that people come to give them filthy money…filthy money, ill money, ill-gotten money they will shut up because they give them money. When I begin to speak up, I have nothing to lose. I am not corrupt, I have said time and again,” he said.
<<Print>>