The Presidential seat is arguably one of the envious positions in the country due to the authority it wields. Personalities who look to capture power also hold varied perspectives as to the rationale.

Ahead of the 2024 elections, many names have popped up in this regard from the two leading political parties, National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) selling messages of hope and an upgrade in the living standards of Ghanaians when given the nod.

Former Agriculture Minister, Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto is one of the politicians soliciting support to be NPP's flagbearer.

But Dr Akoto says his will to contribute to the NPP underpins this commitment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Omwc9toUXPs

He gave this indication when he spoke with Evans Mensah on JoyNews’ PM Express on Monday.

Evans Mensah had asked the question, "Why do you want to be President?" His answer was this, “I want to be president because I want to be the flagbearer of NPP.”

Dr Akoto who is among the nine people eyeing the flagbearership position of the NPP said the number of votes the party polls during a general election is dwindling.

Thus, he wants to “make a contribution to the New Patriotic Party” by becoming President and uniting the party.

Making reference to the results from the 2020 elections, he said “Now we have 137, NDC has 137. We came from 169, we lost a net of 36 constituencies. [In 2016] Our presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo beat Mahama by 1.5 million votes and it was unprecedented in the Fourth Republic. [However] the vote dropped to only half a million in 2020.

“And the puzzling thing is given the first term of Akufo-Addo, where there was no Covid and things were running for this country rate of growth of the economy and so on one would have thought that Ghanaians will actually give us a pat on the back by voting for even higher numbers than 2016. But what happened? We nearly lost Parliament, and now of course, 137,137. The only difference between majority is one independent candidate who decided to work with us,” he said.

The former Minister for Agriculture stressed that after the 2020 elections, he noticed there was a lot of work to be done within the party.

He stressed that “so you see that we are not in a good place. And the interesting thing is this sharp drop in our performance election in 2020. It wasn't because of the message or whatever promises NDC was giving, it was to do with the party.”

The NPP stalwart juxtaposing the party to that of a car said, the engine was broken.

“See the party is the machinery. If I called an Uber here to take me to my house, and the Uber comes in and the engine is broken. I could sit in that car forever and ever it won’t move.

“And this is reflected because why is it that we have good performance in the first term. Our opposition, NDC, did not have any message for the 2020 election and we nearly lost Parliament and [the numbers] of Majority has been cut down.”