Campaign for 2024 flag-bearer position unproductive - John Boadu

The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mr John Boadu, has described as unproductive development regarding the party’s 2024 flagbearership contest.

As a result of this, he said, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the NPP would soon meet to take a decision on current happenings regarding the contest for the 2024 flag-bearer position of the party.

“The party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) is scheduled to meet very soon to deliberate on developments regarding the 2024 flag-bearer contest, and will, most definitely, take a strong position on the matter in order to ensure that every member of the party, regardless of their status, is called to order. The party is much bigger than the individual ambitions of its leading members,” he stated.

Mr Boadu said this at Damongo in response to concerns of the party’s rank and file, during the National Executives’ engagement sessions with party grassroots as part of their nationwide ‘thank you’ tour.

There have been concerns about the conduct of some leading members of the party with presidential ambitions, who are said to be engaged in some covert manoeuvrings towards bringing their ambitions into fruition.

At the meeting, some of the party members were averse to the actions of some overzealous supporters of the aspirant flag-bearer hopefuls engaged in smear campaign and mudslinging, especially on social media platforms against one another.

Accordingly, the grass-roots urged the leadership of the party to take immediate steps to arrest the situation before it got out of hand.

Not time

Mr Boadu said the party had not reached the stage to consider the guidelines or rules and regulations for the 2024 flag-bearer contest, which was three years away per the party’s constitution.

“It is, therefore, way too early for anybody having ambition to contest in the 2024 flagbearership to make public such ambitions, because time is just not rife,” he stated.

Mr Boadu said the priority of the party was to help the “yet-to-be fully constituted Akufo-Addo government deliver on its second term mandate to the Ghanaian people, and not matters of who should succeed President Akufo-Addo.”

“We just won the 2020 elections, and the President is still in the process of forming his government with the appointment of ministers, deputies, chief executive officers and governing boards of the various state institutions, for us to start implementing our campaign promises.

“Our victory in 2024 will, by all means, be dependent on how this yet-to-be fully constituted second-term Akufo Addo-led government performs,” he stated.

He, therefore, wondered why people would be rushing to look for a successor for the President when he had not even finished forming his government.

“We, as leaders of the party, won’t allow such backwardness and distractions”, Mr Boadu stressed.