The Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, believes that the outgoing Vice President and flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the recently concluded 2024 general election, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, remains a better option for Ghana.

Before the election, Mr Bentil was vocal in his support for Dr Bawumia across several social media platforms, urging Ghanaians to choose him over former President John Mahama.

Speaking on Joy News’ Newsfile on Saturday, a week after Dr Bawumia’s presidential bid was truncated by Mr Mahama, Bentil reaffirmed his support for Dr Bawumia, stating that he remains the better candidate than the National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Mahama.

“I still believe that Dr Bawumia is the better candidate. He [John Mahama] disagreed with me, but he has won fair and square. I wish President Mahama well. If he succeeds, he succeeds for all of us, but for me, Dr Bawumia was the better candidate,” he told Samson Lardy on the show.

According to Bentil, his belief is supported by research conducted by IMANI in February 2024, ten months before the December 7 polls.

He explained the outcome of the research, saying, “I took a principled position. What you see here is a research we did in February, which showed us that it looked like President Mahama would win, but this was driven by the anger of the Ghanaian people. What I did was to say, 'Drop your anger and look at the candidates', and I still believe Dr Bawumia was the better candidate.”

However, NDC's Kofi Adams, Member of Parliament (MP) for Buem Constituency in the Oti Region, disagreed with Mr Bentil during the show.

For Adams, Bentil and IMANI should have focused more on the arrogance of the NPP government and other social issues affecting the country, rather than debating who was the better candidate for Ghana.

Without allowing Mr Bentil to elaborate on his point, the MP quickly countered, saying, “They ignored the economy, ignored the arrogance, ignored the environmental destruction that was going on, and were just looking at strains."

Meanwhile, some NPP members have argued that Dr Bawumia was punished for sins he did not commit and that the NPP lost because their members did not turn out to vote in their numbers.