The Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA), Samuel Awuku, has thrown his weight behind Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to lead the New Patriotic Party (NPP) as its flagbearer and secure victory in the 2024 presidential election.
As someone who believes in the vision of the Vice President, Mr Awuku, a former National Organizer of the NPP, said the response he got after asking him (Bawumia) why he wants to be President, showed how ready he is to lead.
As a continuity theme running through the NPP which had seen many Members of Parliament (MP) declaring support for Dr Bawumia to be their 2024 Presidential candidate, The Herald has picked up reports that the Vice-president, also appears to be the preferred candidate for the youth of the ruling party many of who hold the view that they are the NPP’s future.
The likes of Anthony Abayifaa Karbo, ex-NPP National Youth Organizer and former MP for Lawra Constituency in the upper West Region and many others are in the camp of the Vice-President working day and night to have him lead the NPP.
There is also the feeling that, it is about time that a person from another ethnic group other than an Akan is allowed to lead the NPP.
Since 1992 the NPP, has been led by an Ashanti in the person of John Agyekum Kufuor or Akyem in the persons of Prof. Albert Adu Boahene and Nana Akufo-Addo. Interestingly, they have all had people with northern extraction as their running mate.
Recently, the MP for Yendi, Farouk Aliu Mahama, challenged NPP delegates to shed the party’s “Akans only tag” by choosing the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, as the flagbearer of the party for the 2024 presidential elections.
According to him, choosing Bawumia as the NPP’s presidential candidate will help break the notion that the NPP, as a party, discriminates.
“It is time for us to make sure that we clean up the perception that the NPP is for a few. The NPP is for everybody.
“We now want to work in a way that shows that the NPP is a party that accepts all. And Bawumia is the unifying person we can use to show that we accept every person,” he said.
Farouk, son of the late Vice President, Alhaji Aliu Mahama, insists it can be removed with only one decision., humble Bawumia “will bring Northerners, Akans, Ewes, everybody together.
He is a humble person, and he will be a listening president. Also, with his economic background, he will move the country to a different level.”
Speaking in an interview on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen Monday, Mr Awuku said that “If the NPP opens nomination and the Vice President decides to contest, I will definitely support him. I asked him two critical questions, why he wants to be President. He told me his major focus if he should ever become President one day is how to create opportunities for young people and he is very tolerant”.
To Mr Awuku, Dr Bawumia was very instrumental in the party with his exposé, presentation and delivery at the Supreme Court case during the 2016 election petition, a feat he said marked the turning point of the NPP’s electoral operations.
“Bawumia did the NPP a lot of good by helping all of us to understand what happened in the electoral process,” he said.
The former National Youth Organizer sent an all-important piece of advice to the man he claims he admires.
“Bawumia, has not declared that he will go, but if he decides to go, he should know that he is going to be grilled because all NPP presidential hopefuls are strong and great, but I think he will do his best. Even though all these people are very strong and great men, I believe Bawumia is strategic,” he added.
Speaking on Adom FM on Monday on the same subject, the NLA boss said “God willing, if the NPP opens nominations and His Excellency the Vice President decides to contest, I will support him. I asked him two critical questions, including why he wanted to become president. And he told me that his major focus, if he should ever become president one day, is how to create a future of opportunities for young people.
“The other people who will be contesting in the primaries are very strong people and stalwarts of the party, but he (Bawumia) is the ‘primus inter pares,” he said in Twi, adding that the vice president had sacrificed a lot for the NPP, including leaving top positions at the Bank of Ghana and the African Development Bank so that he could serve the party.
Sammy Awuku, also said that Bawumia’s testimony during the 2012 election petition, did the NPP a lot of good.
The NPP has scheduled its presidential primaries for November 4, 2023 with the former Trade and Industry Minister, Alan Kyerematen Assin, Central MP, Ken Agyapong, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the former Food and Agriculture Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, ex-Mampong MP, Francis Addai-Nimoh, and former Regional Cooperation Minister, Dr Kofi Konadu Apreku expected to face off in the race for the flagbearership position of the party.
