NPP presidential primary not 2-horse race —Nuworsu

A former Volta Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and now joint Campaign Manager of the Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto Campaign Team, Kenwuud Nuworsu, has said the former Food and Agriculture Minister will win the upcoming NPP presidential primary slated for November 4, 2023.

He believes Dr Akoto is well-positioned to galvanise the grassroots base of the party, bring everybody on board and present a formidable team to win the 2024 election.

He noted that the party tradition could not go into the 2024 general election with a limping leg and expected to break the eight-year governance cycle the country had been experiencing in the Fourth Republic.

He has, therefore, cautioned those who believe the upcoming presidential primary would a two-horse race, between Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen to start revising their notes, because Dr Akoto would cause an upset in the contest.

Mr Nuworsu, who is also a former Deputy Minister of Manpower and Employment during the Kufuor Administration, who made the assertion in an interview with the Daily Graphic, stressed that as a true patriot of the NPP, Dr Akoto has the wherewithal to lead the party to victory.

Besides, he said, his track record showed that Dr Akoto was the best candidate among the lot to lead the NPP and Ghana.

“It is not a two-horse race at all. We have been on the ground.

It is one thing being on the ground and another being out there making noise.

You remember Kufuor’s strategy during the 2000 election.

“He was underrated because he was not in the full glare of the media.

He had gone underground and emerged the winner.

That is the same strategy Dr Akoto is also employing”, he noted.

He added, “he has done his groundwork; we have assessed his work and in this game, you have to assess yourself, your strength against your other opponents before you can strike your chest and say I want to go into this contest. And we are in the contest to win”.

Given his background as the son of the legendary Baffour Akoto, one of the Founding Fathers of the United Party tradition, Dr Akoto understands grassroots mobilisation.

He has in the process toured the length and breadth of the country on countless occasions listening to the concerns of the grassroots to enable him to devise a mechanism to address those concerns.

Mr Nuworsu said one major challenge Dr Akoto came across during those tours was the lack of employment opportunities for the teeming youth.

aving successfully executed the government’s flagship Planting for Food and Jobs Programme, Mr Nuworsu, also a spokesperson for the campaign, strongly believes that Dr Akoto is the ideal candidate who truly connected with the party and government to address the myriad of challenges confronting the grassroots party faithful.

He argued strongly that a vote for Dr Akoto was a victory for Ghana since he was the only candidate who could turn the fortunes of the country around, using agriculture as the fulcrum to generate more revenue to develop the other sectors of the economy.