As the campaign season heightens in the country ahead of the December 7, 2024, general elections, the sitting vice president, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who is also the flagbearer of the NPP, has caught the eye of many people online because of something he said concerning the polls.
As reported on Saturday, July 13, 2024, Bawumia told a gathering at Nanung, a community in the northern parts of Ghana, that Ghanaians should vote for him to become president and that should he fail Ghanaians, then they can reject him when he attempts a second term.
“I am the Vice President; I’ve not been president yet and I want to plead with you, I am going to the contest with my senior John Mahama, he has been president before, and when he comes, he has only four years.
“When I come, I have eight years, so, if you look at the presidency, do we want four years or eight? After four years, he won’t come but I will come for renewal, so please give me the chance, so that I can be accountable,” he is reported to have said.
But this is not the first time such similar words have been spoken.
And as if to remind Ghanaians of where those words were once spoken, an old post on Facebook by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, when he was also flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), quickly emerged online.
The post, dated February 22, 2016, reads: “This year, try me too. Give me the chance to show you what I can do. Four years is not so far away. If I come and I don’t succeed, kick me out. God knows my heart and I can assure you that I won’t disappoint you. Progress and prosperity are what I am offering the people of Ghana.”
Akufo-Addo was speaking to some Muslim clerics and chiefs of settler communities in Derma in the Tano South Constituency in the Brong Ahafo Region when he made these comments.
