By Emmanuel Oti Acheampong
With over 20,000 delegates going to choose a leader for the New Patriotic Party, it beckons on the delegates to know who their contestants are and who deserves their thumb and representation.
Having served under the first and second terms of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, as the Minister in charge of Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto comes into this contest as one that has his umbilical cord cut from the old historics of the NPP.
The former Agriculture Minister survived the pruning that occurred during the Party’s Super Delegates Conference and has since been making silent moves within the ranks and file of the party.
Unlike Dr. Bawumia’s “Signal” and Ken Agyapong’s “Showdown”, Dr. Akoto comes with a witty tagline as “ATOPA” which denotes Akoto Tops All.
In a recent engagement with the media and some followers of the NPP, the former Agriculture Minister mentioned that when he is voted as Flag bearer he will plead with party members who have left the party to come back because unity after such an election is key to the party’s victory in 2024.
In an interview with renowned Political Marketing Strategist and Lecturer at the University of Ghana Business School, Professor Kobby Mensah posits that, in as much as the NPP is presenting “weak” candidates, the former Agriculture Minister comes nowhere closer to the favourites of the people.
Even though the survey conducted by Global Info Analytics predicted doom for Dr. Afriyie Akoto, he still yearns to defy all odds and rise through the ranks and favourites of the election to emerge victorious.
All hands points out that the son of the late Okyeame Baffour Akoto, founder and Leader of the National Liberation Movement, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, he is still positive that Delegates will reward him to lead the party in order to break the Eight.
We wish him and the other contestants, the best.
