Good leaders aspire to inspire.
And the best source of inspiration is to portray good and exemplary traits worth emulating.
Good behavioural traits of leaders communicate their vision and worth-to-do attributes to their people, making it easy to drive them to a desired future.
The above can’t be spoken about, hon. Samuel Tika yaye. a parliamentary aspirant in the Daboya/Mankaragu parliamentary primaries.
To your surprise and disbelief, Hon. Samuel Tika failed to honour his obligations as a card-bearing member of the NPP, yet his yearning to lead NPP Daboya/Mankarigu to the 2024 elections as the parliamentary candidate.
In the just-ended NPP parliamentary vetting, Hon. Samuel Tika was revealed to have not paid his party dues for the past four years until the day of vetting.
Mr. Tika was not a member of the party in good standing at the time he appeared before the committee, per the constitution of the party. The chairman of the committee asked for his disqualification, but the regional chairman and his executives pleaded on his behalf.
How then do you lead this party after failing to contribute to the internal running, growth, and development of the party?
It is worth noting that the party’s national council recently launched a new dues system, and Mr. Stephen Ntim, our party’s national chairman, encouraged even the grassroots to punctually and regularly pay their dues. Through the digitalization agenda of our able vice president, this new system enables one to pay dues even from the comfort of their homes by just dialling *920*270# and following the prompts.
The new approved fees come in four categories: bronze, GH¢2.00 per month; silver, GH¢5.00 per month; gold, GH¢8.00 per month; and platinum, GH¢10.00 per month.
With all this effort, adequate provisions, and appeals from the party leadership, it is shameful to see personalities like Hon. Samuel Tika’s who aspire to lead the party to the 2024 elections still flaunt their basic obligations enjoined by the party’s constitution. He can neither play this on ignorance nor forgetfulness since this honourable man is noted for such behaviour in his previous parliamentary primaries.
It will interest the public to know that Hon. Samuel Tika is the luckiest politician from the Daboya/Mankarigu constituency since the NPP assumed government.
Guess what? He has enjoyed three juicy appointments, from Regional NABCO Coordinator to Deputy Regional Minister (Saveannah Region) and currently Deputy CEO Minerals Commission since the party assumed government.
Shockingly, this honourable man failed to honour the basic obligation required of him by a party that gave him these great fortunes. The reason he is described above as not being a party person.
His desperation to lead as the parliamentary candidate for the Daboya/Mankarigu constituency is beyond measure.
Mr. Samuel Tika has not only violated his obligations enshrined in our well-articulated constitution but also shockingly disrespected the overlord of the Wasipe traditional area at his palace.
Mr. Samuel Tika, without removing his shoes, entered the palace and comfortably handed over his parliamentary primaries forms with his left hand, pretending to be soliciting the blessing of the wasipewura. He did that without any shame or recourse to the basic tradition and culture of our people. This is disrespectful, arrogant, offensive, and worthy of condemnation. Mr. Tika kept the party in similar difficult circumstances on two occasions, 2012 and 2016, as the party’s parliamentary candidate at that time, eventually making the party lose the opportunity to win the Daboya Mankaragu seat on both occasions.
Upon all these grave offences to the party and tradition of our land, the party’s representatives, led by chairman Alhaji Suleiman Iddrisu, aka Professor Kalamonia, covered up such behaviours and still allowed Hon. Samuel Tika to even go through the vetting, eventually qualifying him to contest in the upcoming primaries scheduled for January 27, 2023.
As a youth group, we are not only disappointed in the behaviour of Mr. Samuel Tika but equally sad at the actions and inactions of party leadership, i.e., the regional secretary of research and our able chairman, Alhaji Suleiman Iddrisu.
As if this is not enough, the Saravannah regional chairman was heard on radio Tamale days after the vetting, defending Mr. Samuel Tika in the name of fostering unity and party cohesion. Though we know the regional chairman’s fatherly and protective attitude towards all members of the party, respectfully, this is not only overboard but an incentive and reference for future offences against our great party.
We therefore call on Mr. Samuel Tika to, as a matter of urgency, render an unqualified apology to the Wasipe traditional council and the entire people of the Wasipe traditional area.
We equally call on the constituency, regional and national, the vice president and candidate of our party, and the president of the republic to call the honourable Samuel Tika to order.
We further call on our dear delegates to reject Mr. Samuel Tika to avoid toading defeat at the general elections by the national Democratic Congress, as witnessed in 2012 and 2016, when he was our parliamentary candidate.
By: Secretary, Musah A. Mumuni