Former Member of Parliament (MP) for Asante Akyem, Andy Appiah-Kubi, has made a shocking revelation about how former President Akufo-Addo vehemently rejected Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as his running mate in 2008.
According to him, former President Akufo-Addo even hurled insults at the former Director of Transport at the Jubile House, Odeneho Nana Oppong for even suggesting Dr. Bawumia to be his running mate.
Recounting the incident in an interview, Andy Appiah Kubi disclosed that at the time President Akufo-Addo was looking for a running mate, a strong force backing him in the Ashanti Region, known as Pillar 1 visited him to suggest some names to him.
During the visit of Pillar 1 which had Odeneho Nana Oppong and Andy Appiah-Kubi as members, they first suggested the late Rashid Bawa but Akufo-Addo rejected him.
“Together with Nana Oppong and others, we visited Akufo-Addo and suggested Rashid Bawa as his running mate. Akufo-Addo told us some people had also presented Boniface to him. But he didn’t want any ne with the antecedent of the NDC to lead the NPP. So on the same principle he disqualified Boniface, he disqualified Rashid Bawa as well,” he disclosed.
Former President Akufo-Addo then asked the men of Pillar 1 the candidate they had in mind when the group shot down a name presented by Akufo-Addo himself.
With three (3) names now rejected, Andy Appiah-Kubi named Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, adding that “he qualified on all fronts.”
“The President (former) immediately said no and added that he heard some people mentioned Bawumia and he said he was not a politician but a civil servant. We told him Bawumia’s response was apt as he didn’t want it to affect his work as a Deputy Governor at the Bank of Ghana.”
With Akufo-Addo still not favoring Dr. Bawumia as his running mate, “Nana Oppong told Akufo-Addo to listen to me but he (Akufo-Addo) got angry and insulted Nana Oppong and even insulted his parents.”
Akufo-Addo first ran for president in the year 2008 and again in 2012, both times as the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) with Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia as his running mate.
The duo lost on both occasions to National Democratic Congress’ candidates: John Evans Atta Mills in 2008 and John Dramani Mahama in 2012.
After the 2012 general elections, the duo refused to concede and proceeded to court to challenge the electoral results, but the Supreme Court of Ghana affirmed Mahama’s victory.
He was chosen as the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party for a third time for the 2016 general elections with Dr. Bawumia as his running mate again, and this time he defeated incumbent John Dramani Mahama in the first round (winning with 53.85% of the votes), which marked the first time in a Ghanaian presidential election that an opposition candidate won a majority outright in the first round.
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