Legal Practitioner and a Senior Lecturer of the College of Art and Built Environment of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Dickson Osei-Asibey has expressed regrets contesting the 2012 parliamentary elections as an Independent candidate
A staunch member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) went independent and contested against the Deputy Minister for Land and Natural Resource Mr. Benito Owusu Bio in 2012.
According to Dr. Dickson Osei-Asibey, his decision to go independent unknowingly tore his party apart in the constituency and brought a lot of harm to them as well.
“I regretted going independent because it didn’t help the party. It brought a lot of division in the party and I didn’t know that was going to cause that harm”, Dr. Dickson Osei Asibey revealed.
Recounting the genesis of his decision on Ghanaman TV in an interview monitored by MyNewsGh.com, he noted that he contested for the primaries with Hon Benito Owusu Bio with another candidate but got disappointed with the party’s decision in the long run and felt betrayed.
“We were three that time and Hon Benito won and I was second. At that time the District had not been divided, it was Atwima Nwabiagya so later they decided to split the district. After the split I was expecting that after Hon Benito had contested in the North, I would also be allowed to contest in the South but that didn’t happen, the third person instead was made to contest on the ticket of the South leaving me the second runner. So the whole community was not happy”, he narrated.
Dr Dickson Asibey explained that his decision to going dependent was because the community felt he should lead the newly created district.
“Later on I regretted going independent because it didn’t help the party. It brought a lot of divisions in the party and I didn’t know that was going to cause that harm. They had to bring President Kufuor, the late Jacob Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey and some NPP big men to talk to me. I still went on as an independent candidate and amassed a lot of votes, but it didn’t help” he reiterated.
