A flagbearer aspirant of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), says the party's recent notice of possible sanction against failed presidential and parliamentary candidates going independent after the contest, is an effort to keep its members.

According to Kwadwo Poku, the directive indicates the love the party has for its members.

The aspirant explained that the party invests hugely in recruiting members and therefore cannot sit and see them go.

The party will do its bit to retrain the aspirants from breaking away but the final decision lies in their hands, he added.

"That tells you the love the party has for its members. The party has a love for the members that it will restrain you from leaving. Because we don't want to lose the best brains. The party will make an effort. It doesn't mean the party doesn't care.

"That point is to tell you that the party will make an effort to restrain you but the end decision is with the individual.

"It tells you the party is not forcing anybody out but it is making an effort to keep its members because it's not easy to go out there - we keep spending money to do outreach to bring more people into the party. So we cannot just be pushing people out," he said on JoyNews' AM show on Thursday.

The NEC of the NPP has released a statement warning aspirants of sanctions in case they decide to break away either by going independent or joining another party, after losing in their upcoming primaries.

According to the party, all the aspirants have signed an undertaking committing themselves to support the eventual winner in both the presidential and parliamentary primaries.

Deputy General Secretary of the NPP, Haruna Mohammed, therefore, said the party reserves the right to restrain any aspirant who will decide otherwise and apply the appropriate sanctions.

“These rules are designed before we open nominations so at the time of designing these rules, there was no aspirant and there was no way we could consult a non-existing aspirant.”

“This is a rule that the party has set, and if you know that when you lose you’ll contest as independent then you don’t pick the form or you don’t return the form, you wait until it’s time for independents to contest.”

“The sanctions are inside the rules, if you go against it, we will take you on because this is an agreement you have signed and the party will take the best decision,” he said.