Dr Bryan Acheampong, the Member of Parliament for Abetifi and New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential hopeful, has revealed he has privately urged Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to bow out of the January 31 primaries.
According to Dr Bryan Acheampong, his appeal was based on the structural challenges within the party.
He stressed the structural challenges within the party could undermine the NPP’s chances if Dr Bawumia lead the party in the 2028 election.
Speaking in an interview on Good Evening Ghana with Paul Adom-Otchere on Thursday, December 18 stated, “Those structural challenges are in addition to what he Mussa Dankwah does not know, the ones that I compiled and reached out to the candidate and said ‘look we will have challenges if we continue like this and therefore if you consider the interest of the party and bow out, that will be great for us so that we can find a new candidate and press on.’
“But then also the perceived division, the supporters of himself and that of Kennedy Agyapong were emerging. It was very clear to me that it was going to take us into 2028, and it will not give us the opportunity of winning that election, and you know if we do not win, we are in serious trouble,” he stated.
Dr Bryan Acheampong had earlier backed Dr Bawumia during the 2023 flagbearer contest, but has since withdrawn despite Former Second Lady Samira Bawumia’s attempts to persuade him to remain with her husband’s campaign.
Also, in a separate interview on JoyNews, Dr Bryan Acheampong ripped Dr Mahamudu Bawumia’s performance in the 2024 elections into shreds.
According to Bryan Acheampong, Dr Bawumia was marketed by the NPP for sixteen years but failed in the market with only securing 41 per cent in the 2024 election.
Dr Bryan Acheampong further highlighted that Dr Bawumia has reached his electoral ceiling, which is 41 per cent.
He described Dr Bawumia as the most marketed NPP candidate, highlighting that he had spent eight years as Vice President and eight years as running mate.
Speaking on PM Express on Tuesday, Dr Acheampong detailed, “Everything that you have ends at 41%. In the sixteen years that we marketed him, he had 41%. We marketed Akufo-Addo for eight months; he had 49.7%,”
He added that the 2024 election results were devastating, with the NPP failing to win a single constituency in seven regions during the 2024 presidential election.
Dr Bryan Acheampong added, “After all the attributes that you just highlighted, in seven regions, we could not win a single constituency,” he said. He listed Volta, Oti, Upper East, Upper West, Savannah and Bono East. He said, “In the presidential, we could not win one constituency in these regions.”
“When we were supporting him in 2023, one of the beliefs was that if we presented him, he would hold the votes from the northern part of Ghana for us. Five of the regions that we did not win a single constituency, seven, five of them are from the northern half of Ghana,” he said.
Dr Acheampong cited further losses. “We could not win one western region, 17 constituencies, we won one presidential. Those attributes and the results of the elections are the ones that the delegates are passing a verdict on”.
“If we market you for 16 years, and you come out with 41% and we market Akufo-Addo for eight months, and he gets 49.7% then there’s a difference,” he said.
Dr Acheampong explained that “the difference is that the marketing did not yield the sales results,” adding that “people are going to change their product.”
“You’re mixing logic with politics and performance,” he said. He said history is often misunderstood. “It is only logic which will suggest that Adu Boahen went once, Busia went once and won; Kufuor went twice and won; Akufo-Addo went three times and won, and logically, it means that Dr Bawumia will go four times,” he said.