A Deputy Director of Communications for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has referred to the 2024 flagbearer of the party, as ‘bankye da daa’ (old cassava), a description used in the party’s past presidential contest in the 1990s.
In the run up to the NPP’s presidential primary tp choose a flagbearer, for the 2000 general elections, the late Joseph Henry Mensah, who was an aspirant went on the offensive describing John Agyekum Kufuor a rejected cassava that was not worthy to be presented to the same delegates.
Kufuor who later became the flagbearer and subsequently won that year’s election led the party in the 1996 election but lost miserably to the then president Jerry Rawlings. J H Mensah’s campaign message was that if the electorates wanted Kufuor as president, they would have voted have voted for in the 1996 election.
According to Ernest Kofi Owusu Bempah, who speaks, Ken Agyapong, a presidential hopeful, he is convinced that, the former vice president Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, is not a credible candidate to win political power in the next general election.
He said he has failed in all fronts and so must be discarded for a fresh candidate, failure to which the party will lose the next general election.
He said even though he does not think that Dr Bawumia can win the election, if the NPP delegates decide that it is the same aspirant they want, he will reluctantly agree to it and wait for the outcome.
“If delegates still elect him as the candidate so be it. If my mother goes to the market and buys old cassava that we should pound fufu with it, we shall eat the spoilt cassava like that. If we eat and we have terrible stomach upset we shall all endure the pains. So if they insist that we make fufu out of the old cassava, we shall but we shall all face the consequence of eating fufu made from spoilt cassava”, he proverbially said.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Kumasi-based Oyerepa television, Owusu Bempah alias Aboa Papo, said he will continue to sound the caution that Dr Bawumia is not a formidable candidate to wrestle power from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in 2028 but if his caution is not adhered to, he will still campaign for the party regardless.
He recalled that in the past, Dr Bawumia was chosen as vice presidential candidate for the first time in 2008 general election because of the acclaimed view that he is the one that was going to tackle the economy and bring stability to the system.
However, years on after winning political power, Dr Bawumia quickly abandoned this claim of being the economic messiah to a totally different field.
He said his new found love for digitalization was as a result of his inability to prove himself as a competent economist over the past eight years the NPP was in power. He said all the economic lectures went waste as it could not show be shown in real life of Ghanaians.
According to Owusu Bempah, the NDC led by President John Dramani Mahama and the Finance Minister, Dr Ato Forson, have what Dr Bawumia could not do in eight years.
“What happened to the Ghanaian economy? Is it not Dr Bawumia that said if the fundamentals are weak the exchange rate will expose you? And that incompetent Mahama could not arrest the Cedi but he has arrested it and given it to the IGP? But today Mahama has arrested the Cedi. One of the fundamental reasons Bawumia was accepted by NPP was in the area of the economy….lectures upon lectures. We are uing data, he likes data so let us use date, let us not talk about law. Now look at what is happening in the Ghanaian political scene”.
The outspoken NPP member further jabbed “He was given opportunity as the head of the economic management team, he emerged in the political scene with numbers and figures, NPP had confidence in him. He came and we saw his performance. Today can he be man enough and say that he wants to be president? What can he do better than what NDC and John Mahama are doing?”
Asked what the NDC are doing he said “But you can see. They are doing it, the Cedi rate when Bawumia was in-charge how much was it compared to now? He said when the fundamentals are weak the exchange rates will expose you so Dr Bawumia, what is the exchange rate today? So what moral right have you got to be talking?”
He observed that during the 2024 campaign Dr Bawunia cleverly distanced himself from all the bad things that happened under the Akufo-Addo government but was quick to lay claim to those that earned the government accolades.
In his view, Owusu Bempah said he will not be surprised if it emerge that indeed the former president no longer supports his former vice president.
Owusu Bempah cited another reason Dr Bawumia saying he was chosen because of his background as a northerner and a Muslim yet he failed in both areas. Using the last December general election, Owusu Bempah said the aspirant could not secure the votes from the five regions in the north except his home region North East.
In some areas, he said he secured zero which is unprecedented.
He said in the zongos where Muslims are dominant, the NPP and it flagbearer as a devoted Muslim were given a sound beaten by the NDC and John Mahama.
He argued that going forward, Dr Bawumia has no constituency to stand on when it comes to which area to garner votes from for the party to win the next general election.
By Gifty Boateng
