Ghanaian popular actor-turned-politician, John Dumelo’s dream to represent the National Democratic Congress in the Ghana parliament for the next four years has been crushed after losing to incumbent Member of Parliament Lydia Alhassan of the New Patriotic Party.
It was gathered that certified results from the Electoral Commission show the NDC candidate poll 37,778 as against Lydia Alhassan’s 39,851. Gifty Botchway of the People’s National Congress and independent candidate, Richard Amegatse, got 160 and 108 votes respectively.
Total valid votes cast stood at 77,604 with 595 being invalid votes.
According to GhanaWeb, the Ayawaso West Wuogon has been one of the most exciting constituencies to watch in this year’s elections due to John Dumelo’s decision to contest.
The moviemaker was sure of victory as he concluded that the incumbent had disappointed the electorate.
The contest was clad with controversy with Lydia Alhassan describing Dumelo as a personality whose level of thinking was shallow. She argued that it was irrational for Dumelo to have attempted to dredge gutters in the constituency without seeking permission from the Assembly.
“You don’t just get up and start doing things. If you are a deep thinker, you’ll realise that people just don’t get up and start dredging gutters,” she poked during a debate.
Infuriated by the comments, Dumelo demanded an apology; he said, “I don’t call this a debate because if you want to debate, you come on time. I came here at 8.30 am, that was the time they gave me.
“You cannot come here at 10:45 am and say you want to debate me, that is not how a Member of Parliament behaves, and then you come here too to insult me. It is not right, and you must apologise.”
Ojelabi, the publisher of Freelanews, is an award winning and professionally trained mass communicator and a recipient of the D9112 Superstar Icon Award, who writes ruthlessly about pop culture, religion, politics and entertainment.
