The New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate, Dr. Mohamudu Bawumia, has urged delegates to cast aside the idea that the party is tribalistic and cast a large number of ballots in support of him in order to “Break the 8” in 2024.
Declaring that he was the only candidate for president that the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) feared to see, he urged party delegates to rally around ‘Team Bawumia’ by casting a sizable majority of ballots for him at the party’s congress in November.
“I am the third person from the North to contest the presidential primary of the party and the support is across the sixteen regions with everyone supporting Dr Bawumia, because I have what it takes to win the 2024 elections,” he said.
“We in the NPP are trying to do something that has never happened. We are breaking the Eight. When the party opened the nomination, I picked the form so I could break the eight for the New Patriotic Party,” he said.
Speaking to party delegates in Tumu ahead of the November 4 elections, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia stated that he should be chosen to lead the party because he had won all 16 regions in the Super Delegates Congress.
“If you look at our party and the antecedents and how we have been maligned, our opponents tell people that we vote on tribal lines.
On November 4, 2023, we shall send a signal to show them we are not a tribalistic party by sending a message that we are a national party,” Dr Bawumia said.
“History tells us that the party doesn’t engage in tribal politics when we are electing leaders, as we are made up of different political groupings from different parts of the country.
He clarified, “Our antecedents are the National Liberation Movement from Ashanti, the Northern Peoples Party from the North, the Anlo Youth Congress, the Ga People, and the Muslim Association Party, which united to form the United Party, which is now the NPP.”
The Vice President emphasised that Busia’s party only won one seat in the 1954 elections, while the Northern Peoples Party won twelve.
This, he said, made the Northern People’s Party the largest opposition party yet it ceded the leadership to Professor Kofi Abrefa Busia, making him the opposition leader and “it tells you one thing that the Northern People’s Party was not choosing leadership on tribal lines”.
He said in recent history, the first Northern candidate who contested in NPP was Alhaji Malik Alhassan Yakubu, who contested former President John A. Kufuor but the people of the North voted for J.A. Kufuor as the party wanted the one who could win elections.
“That showed that the North did not vote for Alhaji Malik Alhassan Yakubu and that showed the North was not tribalistic,” he stressed.
Dr. Bawumia stated, “During the tenure of Vice President Alhaji Aliu Mahama, may his memory be blessed, he opposed the incumbent, President Akuffo Addo. This further demonstrated how the North voted for Nana Akuffo Addo, demonstrating why the party does not continuously vote on a tribal basis.”
He continued by explaining that when Adu Boahen ran for office, the Ashanti region supported him from the Eastern region rather than Kufuor, who is from the Ashanti, because the Ashanti do not vote along tribal lines. He claimed that the Ashanti’s experience was similar to that of the North.
Vice President Bawumia stated that he was the most seasoned candidate among those standing, having run for president four times and receiving a lot of media attention.
“I know the crowd and the ground, the party has marketed me across the country, and I know how to beat my opponent,” he told the delegates.
Dr. Bawumia promised to allocate ten appointments to each constituency and twenty appointments to each region in order to address the issue of the party and government’s lack of unity.
He promised to create a database of the party members’ needs and designate certain people, particularly those employed by state institutions, as the constituency’s Godfathers and Godmothers.