Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, a flagbearer candidate for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), is counting on farmers to win the party’s presidential primary.
The majority of NPP delegates who are farmers, according to Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, profited from the policies and programmes he started while serving as the Minister of Food and Agriculture.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto claimed in an interview with media in Accra that his track record made him the obvious favourite.
The majority of the farmers I encountered in the Upper East, Upper West, and Savannah regions are also delegates and executives of party constituencies. The people who will attest to me are the one million farmers. Ask any farmer how I affected their lives while I served as the minister of food and agriculture. They will also tell you what they have confessed. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto declared, “They will vote for me to win.
Dr. Akoto formally announced his resignation in order to concentrate on his presidential aspirations and steer the New Patriotic Party into the general elections in 2024.
During two terms, he represented the Kwadaso Constituency in Kumasi, Ashanti Region, as a member of parliament.
Prior to his appointment as the Minister for Food and Agriculture in 2017, he served as the Deputy Ranking Member and then the substantive Ranking Member for the Committee on Food, Agriculture, and Cocoa Affairs in Parliament.
The Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Assin Central MP Kennedy Agyapong, and Francis Addai Nimo have all expressed their intent to run for the party’s flagbearership, placing the former Food and Agriculture Minister in a tough struggle.
The others are Joe Ghartey, a former member of parliament for Essikado-Ketan, Kwabena Agyapong, a former general secretary of the NPP, Dr. Kofi Konadu Apraku, and Boakye Agyarko, a former energy minister.
The NPP has set November 4, 2023, for its presidential primaries to select a flagbearer for the general elections in 2024.
However, if more than five candidates file to run in the primaries, the party will call a Special Congress on August 26.
The nomination period for the presidential primaries will begin on May 26 and end on June 24, 2023.
