Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the Flagbearer of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), is scheduled to address Ghanaians on Wednesday, February 7, 2024 to set the stage for an engrossing year-long political campaign.
The event will come off at the Kofi Ohene Konadu Auditorium, University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) at 1600 hours and expected to be streamed live on major media and social media outlets across the country.
His speech will set the ruling party on the campaign mood and expected to highlight the major achievements of the Akufo-Addo-led Government over the past seven years.
It would also outline his vision for Ghana should he be elected as the president on December 7.
Ahead of this major event, the Ghana News Agency (GNA) takes a sneak peep into Dr Bawumia’s previous public pronouncements that underpinned his vision for the NPP and the nation as a whole.
Party Unity
The NPP Flagbearer has always called for party unity as a driving force to win the December 7 Election.
In his re
cent goodwill message to the NPP parliamentary aspirants who lost in the Party’s primaries, Dr Bawumia urged them to consider the supreme interest of the Party and work collaboratively with the elected candidates for a resounding victory and to win majority seats for the Party in the next Parliament.
‘Let’s join together and work in unison for victory in December 2024. To be successful, we must dig deep and renew our spirits of patriotism,’ Dr Bawumia emphasised.
‘Let’s be proud of our heritage and work together to lift our dear nation to new heights in this election year.’
During his victory speech immediately after the NPP Presidential Primary on November 4 at the Ohene Gyan Sports Stadium in Accra, Dr Bawumia once again pledged to work with the rank and file of the party, including all the presidential aspirants, to achieve the desired results.
‘Let’s join hands together, I’m determined to work with all rank and file of the party to achieve the Party’s ambition of Breaking the Eight’.
‘That ambition r
equires the participation of all the aspirants. NPP is a thriving democracy, where leaders are elected, not anointed.’
He was of the firm belief that with unity of purpose, the NPP could break the jinx of ruling party losing elections after serving two terms in office.
The NPP presidential candidate expressed the conviction that the party was the only option that could bring economic transformation and prosperity to Ghanaians, given its impressive track record in government.
‘I have spent the last seven years assisting the President to deliver on many demands; to create more opportunities for the youth, improve the welbeing of our people, create inclusive access to secondary education and healthcare, develop and expand road infrastructure and create convenience in accessing public services, as well as leveraging technology to fast track socio-economic development,’ he said.
Dr Bawumia did not lose sight of the global economic meltdown, of which Ghana was hard hit with her macroeconomic indicators in total
disarray, thus, witnessing high inflation figures and interest rates, among other challenges.
However, he was hopeful that with some stringent measures put in place by the Government, the economy would recover fully.
He, thus, called for patience and optimism as the economy is gradually ‘turning in the corner’.
Dr Bawumia, who had championed the government’s digitalisation initiatives, believed that when given the mandate as the President of the Republic of Ghana, he would leverage his core values – integrity, honesty, discipline, compassion for the vulnerable, hard work, ‘can-do spirit’ and inclusivity – to unleash the creative energies of the youth for development.
Dr Bawumia talks about his vision
‘I have my own vision and my own priorities given the opportunity to lead. I shall be my own man with guidance from God Almighty,’ Dr Bawumia said.
‘I want to lead the nation to unleash the talents of our youth and offer good jobs with good pay, and sustainable growth with macroeconomic discipline’.
‘My vi
sion is to build an inclusive, food self-sufficiency, data-driven and systems-based nation that will fully participate in the global digital revolution’.
He pledged to usher Ghana into a golden age of natural resource governance where value addition would be the hallmark, by ensuring that the citizens maximise the benefits of their natural resource endowment.
He pledged to unleash the ingenuity of the youth in various sectors such as information technology, robotics, entrepreneurship, creative arts, and sports, among others, to build a mighty nation.
‘Breaking the Eight’
Dr Bawumia has made the catch-phrase ‘breaking the 8’ a major talking point in the country’s political conversations.
Since the onset of the Fourth Republican Constitutional rule, no political party has ever managed to win a third term after serving two consecutive terms in government.
And it is on that premise that the NPP Flagbearer sets his sight to break that jinx by extending the tenure of the ruling party for a third term in offic
e after 2024.
He views this audacious ambition as achievable, hence, the slogan ‘#It’s possible’.
This is, indeed, a herculean ambition that cannot be accomplished with just a slogan but with serious work on the ground.
The opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is bent to thwart this ambition with every strength it could garner from its support base.
The NPP Flagbearer is well aware of the hurdle to overcome in order to achieve this feat, which he encapsulated in his victory speech on November 4, 2023.
He said the Party could not break the eight with a culture of complacency and made a clarion call to the rank and file of the party to girde their loin with serious sacrifices.
Dr Bawumia noted that it behoved on every party member to play a role to make the ambition a reality, saying; ‘ Breaking the Eight is more than a slogan.
We reject a tacit argument that power is handed over every eight years, thereby relinquishing responsibility for the growth of this nation.
‘This eight-year cycle stands
in the way of a long-term vision for Ghana. Therefore, breaking it is not about NPP bragging rights, it is about being able to successfully implement long-term vision and policies under a consistent leadership’.
He told the Party’s supporters during his victory speech that ‘breaking the eight is not about partisanship but about patriotism and knowing that Ghana deserves consistency, focus, and follow-through, and not political bickering and division’.
‘We will break the eight in unity, and we’ll govern in unity because regardless of the margin of our victory, we govern for and in the interest of 100 percent of Ghanaians,’ Dr Bawumia emphasised.
Source: Ghana News Agency