Some residents of the Kwadaso constituency in the Ashanti Region have implored delegates of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) not to vote for the former Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto, as the party’s flagbearer.
Although Dr. Afriyie Akoto is a former Member of Parliament for the area, the constituents say he performed abysmally during his two terms.
The constituents also believe that Dr. Akoto Owusu Afriyie did not demonstrate competence after he was appointed to head the agric ministry.
One of the constituents, Agya Nimo, said that Dr. Akoto could not even commission a water project for the constituency.
”He couldn’t manage small Kwadaso, what shows that when given the whole nation to manage, he can do it? This is Kwadaso. As a former MP, he should come and tell us what he did to transform the lives of the constituents. We have a timber market here. He couldn’t even initiate policies to shore up the operations of the traders and he wants to manage Ghana? He should forget about it because he won’t win,” he told Kumasi-based Oyerepa TV.
Some of the constituents also threatened to vote skirt and blouse during the 2024 elections should the delegates elect Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto as flagbearer of the NPP.
“Massa, Dr. Akoto will mismanage the country if he is elected president. We are NPP and we vote for NPP but if the delegates make a mistake by voting for him, we will vote skirt and blouse. Dr. Akoto as flagbearer will thwart the party’s vision of breaking the 8,” another resident stressed.
The immediate-past Minister of Food and Agriculture, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, launched his flagbearer-ship campaign on Monday, March 13, 2023, while laying down some seven interventions he believes the country must undertake to accelerate its total transformation.
Dr Akoto served as a consultant to the World Bank (a United Nations agency) on soft commodities — cocoa, coffee and sugar — in the 1980s, and recently stepped down as Minister of Agriculture to pursue his ambition of becoming the NPP flagbearer ahead of the 2024 elections.
During his campaign launch, he said that the implementation of the Planting for Food and Jobs (PFJ) initiative has been a success.
He, however, added that there is still room for improvement.
Meanwhile, catch up on the concluding part of Francis Addai-Nimoh's interview on GhanaWeb TV below:
AE/WA
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto is the former Minister of Food and Agriculture