[ 2017-04-20 ]

NPP abandons supporter after rally accident
Starr News has learnt that a 34-year-old staunch
supporter of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP)
who reportedly had one of his legs crushed by a
pickup during a campaign rally at Bawku in 2016
has been abandoned to his fate.

Hardi Akalifa, a father of two girls, is into his
6th month at the Bawku Presbyterian Hospital,
confined to a bed after a tissue of his left leg
was removed and transplanted to the affected leg
to replace the protective covering of skin lost in
that gory accident.

The auto crash came whilst plainspoken lawmaker,
Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, was addressing a rally at
the campaign launch of the NPP’s parliamentary
candidate for the Bawku Central Constituency,
Agbanwa Gabiana Abugri, on Saturday November 5,
2016.

Mr. Akalifa was sitting behind a fellow party
supporter on a motorcycle, moving about town among
other party members in a jubilant campaign mood,
when the pickup reportedly ran into them from
behind after bursting a tyre some metres away from
the rally grounds. He heard the results of the
2016 general elections with a slashed thigh and a
bandaged leg in a hospital ward and watched the
swearing-in of the leader of his much-loved party
as President within the confines of a hospital
bed.

He said the day he was admitted to the hospital
was the last time he had seen the leaders of the
party at both constituency and regional levels
even though they had been notified about the
incident.

“It is only the parliamentary candidate, Madam
Gabiana, who comes here to visit me and supports
me. The last time, she came and gave me Gh¢100. I
have brothers who are not well to do but have
stood by me since the day the accident happened
six months ago,” Mr. Akalifa told Starr News.


Despite the alleged neglect, he proudly still
wears an NPP-branded wristlet on his right hand,
saying with a recovering tone that he has not
regretted being a member of the NPP.

Until the crash happened, he was earning a living
at a smock-weaving shop in Bawku where, according
to him, he was making an average of Gh¢15 a day.
With the 6 months spent so far at the
physiotherapy unit multiplied by the everyday
Gh¢15 he was earning, it is safe to conclude that
the rally accident has robbed Mr. Akalifa, whose
firstborn attends a fee-paying basic school, of
about Gh¢2,700 he could have gained in the past 6
months had the shop remained opened.

As of the time newsmen visited the ward, one of
his brothers, Rasheed Akalifa, who has been with
him at the hospital since the last November, was
knitting a smock on the floor of the ward between
Hardi’s bed and that of another fractured
patient whilst attending to his bedridden younger
brother.

“He is sowing the smock for someone. That is the
work we both do. I cannot sew in my condition. But
he is managing to do it here whilst he is here to
look after me and at the same time look after his
own family,” Mr. Akalifa told Starr News.

Akalifa’s plight is news to us- NPP regional
executives

The alleged inattention the NPP supporter is faced
with in the hospital bed, for some observers, is
only the reality that awaits members of the
various political parties who risk their lives in
the party interest.

Several able-bodied men have died horrible deaths
in the region in the line of campaign for their
parties, and the parties for which they suffered
and died have never bothered for once to look
after their wandering children or the families who
became economically stranded after the untimely
departure of their breadwinners.

There have been fatal accidents supporters bring
upon themselves during political activities mostly
by riding motorcycles at a daredevil speed on the
highways. And there have been tragedies that
rather claimed the lives of party enthusiasts well
known for their compliance with all traffic rules
and regulations at all times.

“To be honest and sincere with you, if not today
I have never heard of this matter at all. I’ve
never heard of this accident. Nobody told me. This
is my first time of hearing this news. I’m not
aware. I’m not aware. I don’t have any
comments unless I do my checks. At least, I’m
the Regional Chairman and I’m coming from Bawku
Central and nobody has mentioned this to me. I
will do my checks,” the NPP’s Upper East
Regional Chairman, Murtala Mohammed Ibrahim, told
Starr News when contacted on Mr. Akalifa’s
reported neglect.

The 2016 election showdown in Bawku between the
NPP’s parliamentary candidate, Agbanwa Gabiana
Abugri, and the candidate of the National
Democratic Congress (NDC), Mahama Ayariga, was
spectacular in form and remarkable in result. The
two candidates chose extremely tough legislators-
Kennedy Ohene Agyapong of Assin Central and Hannah
Serwaa Tetteh of Awutu Senya West- to grace their
campaign launch rallies.

The outcome was crossbred. Kennedy Agyapong, who
won his seat, backed Agbanwa, the eventual loser
in Bawku. Hannah Tetteh, who lost her seat,
supported Ayariga, the eventual winner in Bawku.
The two opposing men won their seats whilst the
two conflicting women lost their bid.

Source - Starrfmonline.com

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