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Defies Electoral Commission, flags off campaign
By Joseph Ojumu
Barely seven weeks to the scheduled general elections, the candidate of the All Peoples Congress, APC, Hassan Ayariga, is kicking up a storm over his disqualification.
He has formally flagged off his campaigns and is daring the Electoral Commission, EC to go ahead to ensure that he would indeed not be appearing on the ballot.
Though he is the scion of a notable political family, Ayariga, was before the current disqualification fiasco, one of the lesser-known stars in the political ocean.
But the maverick whose campaign is heavy on youth empowerment, and who is an old boy of Nigeria’s fabled political nursery, Barewa College, Kaduna, has on account of the controversies surrounding his disqualification, bounced further up on the national political ladder.
Analysts say if he is able to upturn the disqualification setback, though he will not likely pick up enough votes to pose as much as a formidable threat to the already long-established frontrunners in the presidential contest, -namely incumbent president, John Dramani Mahama and his close rival, Nana Akufo Addo – if he persists in the political arena, he would very well have crossed the critical hurdle of name recognition.
And already it is even now looking as if he is indeed in politics to stay given the very many ilometres he has since traversed since getting into the fray.
At the launch of his campaign on Saturday October 15, 2016 at Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region, Ayariga would not be bothered with the extant obstacles. According to the Electoral Commission, he had been disqualified because there were anomalies with his nomination forms. But the ebullient fighter who only four years ago had also contested the presidency, albeit on the platform of the PNC, says that the errors have indeed been made by the commission itself and affirms that there is indeed no stopping him.
Ayariga and 12 others had recently been disqualified by the Electoral Commission for failing to meet the requirements spelt out in CI 94, the instrument governing this year’s polls. While some of the disqualified aspirants have gone to seek legal redress on the matter, the APC flagbearer chose to proceed with his scheduled campaign launch, further letting off steam by dancing alongside Dancehall act, Shatta Wale as the popuar crooner blasted his ‘Kakai.’
Born on September 4, 1971, the accountant and entrepreneur who is an alumnus of the London School of Accountancy is a serial investor in Ghana and Germany even as he is fluent in English, Twi and Deutsch.
Viewed in many quarters as the shining jewel of the democratic enterprise in West Africa, a successful conduct of the forthcoming Presidential and General Elections would join a series of earlier successes recorded since the civilianised dictatorship of Flight Lieutenant John Jerry Rawlings, in consolidating the former Gold Coast’s image and place in the sub-region and continent as an assured bastion of civil, democratic political conduct.
Even equally auspicious is the fact that the polls, this time is being moderated by Ghana’s first female chair of the Electoral Commission, Ms. Charlotte Osei.
APC candidate, Hassan Ayariga
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