A communications team member of the ruling New Patriotic Party(NPP), Solomon Assante, has advised executives of the party not to publicly take sides on who should be the successor of President Akufo-Addo as his tenure will soon come to an end.
Making reference to an advise the Assin Central Member of Parliament(MP), hon. Kennedy Agyapong gave, Solomon stated that “Kennedy Agyapong said there were certain things he did in the past which he thinks wouldn’t help going forward- one thing a leader should know is that when his subordinate are competing for something, you don’t take sides; you don’t show whom you support. That is the advice he gave during the national delegates conference”.
“In 2008, an open support went against us when supporters had decided that the flagbearership mantle should be handed over to Akufo-Addo to lead the party after J.A Kufuor’s tenure was coming to an end but the President’s actions indicated he was in support of someone else and as such, the delegates voted massively against the candidate President Kufuor supported- that tells us that when you are a leader you don’t openly take sides”, Mr. Assante indicated.
Adding that “apart from the call for reshuffle, I will urge President Akufo-Addo to continue to remain neutral as he has always been so that he may be able to come in and settle disputes and misunderstandings that may arise- and that will help us get the unity we need going into election 2024. Because if you take sides and there’s an issue, how would you be able to solve it? We wouldn’t want to witness what happened in 2008 again”.
According to him, this year’s election is similar to what happened in 2008. “J.A Kufuor implemented many social interventions and policies like the national health insurance scheme (NHIS), free maternal care, youth employment, livelihood empowerment against poverty (LEAP), metro mass transit among others which hadn’t happened in Ghana before. These were interventions that cut across and benefitted all Ghanaians. But due to apathy and propaganda from the opposition, we were voted against. Although they started praising the former President Kufuor two months after elections”, Solomon Assante added.
“We are pleading with members of the party and Ghanaians to be vigilant like the serpent. We have seen the NDC before- looking at the social interventions Nana Addo has executed, although we are witnessing some economic turbulence which are caused largely by external factors. Please we shouldn’t compromise on choosing the best”, he concluded.