I have no preferred candidate in NPP presidential primaries – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said on Wednesday that he had no favourite candidate in the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) presidential primaries, emphasising that delegates will determine who leads the party in next year’s election.

He would, however, vote for a candidate “who, I believe, can best unite the Party, and, above all, who can win the presidential election of 7th December 2024, and inflict a third successive defeat on the perennial NDC Presidential Candidate, John Dramani Mahama.”

In a meeting with party communicators at the Jubilee House, Accra, the President noted that the actions by a few members close to the final leg of the internal contest of the NPP are making the front pages for the wrong reasons.

“We are expending some of our energies hurling invectives at each other, instead of at our opponents, and, in the process, taking digs at our own Government. It has been an anxious time for all who love our party, and who see us as the party that can bring progress and prosperity to our nation.

“It is for this reason that, as President of the Republic and de-facto leader of the Party, I want to ensure that certain actions of yesteryear, which contributed to our loss in 2008, are not repeated. We cannot afford an internal campaign based on ethnic or religious considerations,” he said.

President Akufo-Addo told the gathering the claim that government machinery was being used to prop a certain candidate in the election was a “false narrative.”

“The assertions being made by a few in our party who, because of internal party politicking, are accusing my government of allegedly intimidating and coercing party faithful to throw their support behind one of the presidential aspirants, that is the Vice President. It is a false and malicious narrative.

“I want to say in very clear terms to you and to the world, it is a false malicious narrative…there is not a single truth to it,” he said.

The President told the communicators that “I can beat my chest and say, without any fear of contradiction, that there is no one in the party, there is not a single person in the NPP who can say that I have asked him or her to support this or that aspirant.”

“I have not set out to dismiss any MMDCE or political appointee from office for supporting any particular aspirant; no Minister or Deputy Minister has lost their job or been threatened for openly campaigning for their preferred presidential aspirant; neither has any caveat emanated from Jubilee House to the Party across the length and breadth of the country demanding that Candidate A be supported over Candidate B. I, better than anyone in the Party, know that this is not the way to go,” he stated.

President Akufo-Addo stated emphatically that whoever emerged as the Presidential Candidate, “will be chosen freely and transparently by an Electoral College of some 250,000 people, and not by President Akufo-Addo.”

“I have just one vote, the same as any polling station executive anywhere in the country. I will, however, cast that vote for an aspirant who, I believe, can best unite the Party, and who can win the presidential election of 7th December 2024, and inflict a third successive defeat on the perennial NDC Presidential Candidate, John Dramani Mahama,” he stressed.

The President told the communicators that he was working for the party’s triumph in the 2024 election and that he was looking forward to handing over to an NPP Presidential Candidate elected by the Ghanaian people as President and asked all members to share the same goal.

“I assume that we all want our party to win the 2024 elections decisively, our parliamentary candidates to win, again, the majority of seats in Parliament, and our flagbearer to become the President of the Republic. I expect and accept arguments on how we prosecute this agenda. But I do not expect and do not accept that party members would do anything to jeopardise the goal we have set ourselves of winning the 2024 elections, and I will work with all who seek this objective,” he added.