The Attorney General and Minister for Justice, Dr. Dominic Akuritinga Ayine, has issued a caution to members of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), describing the burgeoning internal scramble for the party’s future flagbearership as an unnecessary diversion from the state's developmental agenda.

Speaking in an interview on Bolgatanga-based A1 Radio, Dr. Ayine, who also serves as the Member of Parliament for Bolga East, expressed concern that premature succession talk could undermine the government's ability to fulfil its social contract with Ghanaians.

He urged party loyalists and government appointees to pivot their energy toward governance priorities rather than the 2028 electoral cycle.

The Attorney General’s remarks come as President John Dramani Mahama completes the first year of his current term.

Despite the administration’s focus on its economic reset, murmurs of who will lead the party in the next general election have begun to permeate NDC circles.

Dr. Ayine dismissed these manoeuvres as poorly timed, insisting that the President requires a stable political atmosphere to deliver on his mandate.

“I am more interested in working to be a good Attorney General and serving the people of this country. I am not very keen on who succeeds the President. In fact, it is not something I think about regularly because I believe it is a distraction. The President has done just one year. We should allow him to continue working,” Dr. Ayine explained.

As a legal luminary and a key figure in the NDC’s intellectual wing, Dr. Ayine argued that political ambition must be subservient to the party's institutional structures.

He reminded aspiring candidates that the NDC’s constitution mandates a specific sequence of internal elections before the flagbearership is even considered.

He noted that the party must first focus on:

1. Branch-level elections to solidify the grassroots.
2. Constituency and Regional executive reshuffling.
3. National Delegate Congress to elect party leadership.

“At the appropriate time—after we have conducted our party elections and selected our branch, constituency, regional, and national executives—then those who wish to contest can come forward,” he stated.

The Minister for Justice emphasised that the average Ghanaian is more concerned with the success of the government’s "welfare-enhancing programmes" than the internal power dynamics of the NDC.

With 2026 projected to be a year of intensified domestic revenue reforms, Ayine maintains that the administration’s primary metric of success will be its impact on the lives of ordinary citizens.

“We should be more interested in the welfare-enhancing programmes of the government than in who is going to succeed His Excellency,” he added.