Focus On Bawumia’s Vision for Ghana, Not Needless Gossips – Afenyo-Markin

The Minority Leader, Osahen Alexander Afenyo-Markin, has suggested that after a successful presidential primary which elected Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia as the 2028 flag-bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), party related discussions should center on the vision and message of the candidate rather than on petty gossips ostensibly fashioned to push divisive and personal interests.

“Let us focus on the Party; there is a leader, we have had a successful primary. That should be our focus, we should begin to project the leader and what he stands for, his vision for the Party, how we should bring everybody on board, all aspirants, all individuals, various constituencies and their executives”, Afenyo-Markin noted when he spoke on Joy Fm’s News File programme on Saturday.

He noted further: “I would want to beg of those who are having these discussions that we have elected a flag-bearer. It appears that people are taking the shine out of the beautiful elections we had and nobody is talking about the Bawumia victory and the unity that would take us to 2028.”

Afenyo-Markin said his job as Minority Leader, his “job is to rally the party in parliament to achieve that one goal, to win elections.”

He explained how come members of the Minority Caucus, last Monday got to the residence of Dr. Bawumia before him, prompting all manner of whispers and speculations:

“I had gotten in touch with the flag-bearer and we had agreed on a plan to meet with him as a Caucus on Tuesday…I conveyed a meeting Tuesday morning and we agreed that from there we were going straight to the flag-bearer’s residence. But I had two other things to do in between in Parliament. The Chief Whip and my good self had to attend a Business Committee meeting. And I also needed the permission of the Leader of the House, Hon, Ayariga to extend the sitting time. We needed him to inform the Speaker of the Minority’s temporal absence.

“At that same time, we had a Leadership Media encounter that had already been programmed…The understanding was that my colleagues were going (to Dr. Bawumia’ house) in a bus so they should take the lead. Because I have been assigned an official outrider, I could make it faster so I should go to the Leadership Media encounter and then move fast to join my colleagues.

“Anybody who watched the media encounter would realize that when I got in, Ayariga said Leader has to go somewhere and that he wants to give him the chance. I put forth our issues and indicated that we needed to meet our flag-bearer so I hope in my absence, he Ayariga, won’t throw some upper cuts.”

The Minority Leader said he had already started rallying his home Region for the task of winning 2028: “Before I left Accra, through the Central Regional Chairman, I called all constituency chairmen in Central to a meeting and reminded them elections are over, we have a leader and all must ensure commitment to the vision of the flagbearer and that is what every constituency and region must do: commit to the vision of the flag-bearer and prepare ourselves for the task ahead. That is what matters.”