Concerned NPP Members Bemoan Imposition Of Bawumia As 2024 Flagbearer

A group of Concerned New Patriotic Party (NPP) members in the Northern Region is decrying what they say is the draconian imposition of Vice President Mahumudu Bawumia on the party as the NPP’s de facto Presidential Candidate for the 2024 elections.

In a letter to the Chairman of the Northern Regional Council of Elders of the party, the group bemoans the arbitral declaration of Dr. Bawumia as the 2024 presidential candidate by serving executives of the party who ought to know that these declarations are unconstitutional.

And then on top of it, they complain, people who dissent such declarations are targeted victimized with suspensions.

“Mr. Chairman, these declarations in our considered view, puts the party in a very awkward position considering the fact that His Excellency the vice president has not made any public pronouncement regarding his intention to contest as flagbearer of our party now or in the future,” the letter said.

 “We see this action by the northern regional executives as an imposition of a candidate, who has not even declared his intention to contest in the upcoming National Delegates conference of our party.”

It said in the aftermath of the NPP’s Annual Delegates Conference in the Savelugu constituency, three (3) polling station executives who dissented to the declaration at the conference were suspended.

“If sanctions should be meted out for any transgression, then it should be against the Savelugu Constituency Secretary, his vice and the Northern Regional Organizer (Alhaji Rashid COP) who were alleged to have masterminded the said declaration. We think that their action contravened the party’s code of conduct,” the letter said.

The ruling NPP is faced with a looming waterloo that could cause an implosion from the clamour for a Bawumia ticket in 2024.

Fault lines have developed along the camps of Vice President Bawumia and Trade Minister, Alan Kyeremanten, who many believe should be in line to succeed President Akufo-Addo as party leader.

President Akufo-Addo is believed to be backing Bawumia because having his Vice succeed him means he will still be able to maintain his stranglehold on the party even from out of office as Bawumia’s puppet master.

But a Bawumia success would also be seen as a rob of the Ashanti Region of its rightful turn to lead the party after Akufo-Addo and the “Akyem Mafia’s” 8-year iron hold on the party.