On 21 January 2024, at about 1100 hrs. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament for the Gushegu constituency in the Northern Region, Lawyer Alhassan Sulemana Tampuli, was endorsed as the Parliamentary Candidate of the party for the 2024 general elections.
The Deputy Minister for Transport in a popular acclamation held on Sunday, January 21, 2024, was declared by the Gushegu Municipal Director of the Electoral Commission (EC) as the elected 2024 Parliamentary candidate of the NPP giving that he was the sole aspirant who declared his intention to run for the primaries at the time nominations.
The EC Northern Regional Director, Mr. Lucas Yiryil, who was also present at the event, said that acclamation was in line with Constitutional Instrument (C.I 127). He explained the C.I 127 stipulates that at the close of nominations, if one candidate dully stand nominated, that person should be declared elected unopposed.
Mr. Yiryil further clarified that the nomination process was handled by the NPP and the commission was informed that only candidate in the Gushegu constituency filed to contest at the close of nominations.
Mr. Tampuli in his remarks thanked the New Patriotic Party delegates for reposing their trust and mandate in him to lead the party again.
“The last time when we had this exercise in 2020, the issue at the time was that, I was being imposed on the people by the party or the government and so there was some amount of disquiet but since then we have proven to all doubting Thomas’s that the choice that was made in 2020 that [out of the 275 Parliamentary candidates] I was the only person who never picked a nomination form, and who never paid any filing fees and yet I was made to the contest the elections on the ticket of the NPP, was apt.”
“This time around, those who doubted whether the decision to make me the Parliamentary candidate then and eventually the Member of Parliament of Gushegu have come to realize that that decision was a masterstroke” he asserted.
The former CEO of National Petroleum Authority (NPA) said it is now proven and evident for his critics to know that he has the capabilities to represent the people of Gushegu constituency in Parliament and every sphere of human endeavor. The NPP legislator noted the unprecedented infrastructure growth and human resource development in the constituency is a manifestation of his proactive leadership qualities.
“…Over the last three years, I have proven to all of them that I have what it takes to represent the people of Gushegu in every sphere of human endeavor; be it in education, road infrastructure, electricity, health, provision of sanitary convenience and so on and so forth and I believe those are some of the considerations that played out in the choice of me being the solitary candidate as far as this election is concerned” he said.
Mr. Tampuli has also vowed to double his performance in his next term all in the effort to improve on the socioeconomic livelihood of his constituents.
He promised to add about 65 more communities to the national electricity grid, construct more mechanized boreholes and dams, health infrastructure, school blocks and the road network, student scholarship, teachers and nurses quarters, micro loans support to women groups, etc, to boost economic activities in the municipality.
“The Gushegu constituency is one that the NDC will kiss goodbye and they will kiss it goodbye for a very longtime because the alternative that they are bringing to replace me even among the NDC supporters is not good enough and what he is even promising that he would come to do is so empty”.
