NPP must elect 2024 flagbearer early – Ben Ephson suggests

Managing Editor of the Daily Dispatch newspaper, Ben Ephson has suggested to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to fast-track its timetable of electing the next presidential candidate in order to save the Akufo-Addo-led government from any distractions.

According to him, the same challenges faced by then President John Agyekum Kufuor in 2005 are rearing their head in the government of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

“This, I think, is something that the NPP must deal with. Maybe the government needs to focus. [In] Akufo-Addo’s open letter in 2005 when he was asked to also declare openly, he acknowledges that [then] President Kufuor must succeed. In the same way Nana Akufo-Addo must succeed as president because whoever is elected as the flagbearer will ride on the back of Akufo-Addo’s failures or otherwise,” Mr Ephson stated on The Keypoints on TV3/3FM on Saturday, April 10.

He, however, noted that the times may have changed as there were not many media firms nor social media like there is now.

“The NPP as a party will have to move with the times and I suspect that they may have to fast-track their programmes [particularly] their timetable of electing a flagbearer because it is not going to stop.”

He suggested that there are even about eight names that have come as regards aspirants to succeed Mr Akufo-Addo.

Mr Ephson believes the earlier a candidate is elected the better because all those whose names have come up have remained silent.

“So far, eight names have come up and nobody as far as I am concerned has come out to say he does [know about it]. They have kept quiet. Only Joe Ghartey was bold enough to say and he has been put aside.”

All this comes on the back of agitations between supporters of Minister of Trade and Industry Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen and Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia over who deserves to lead the party in the next presidential elections.

This has been seen as a distraction to current government.