Former President John Agyekum Kufour is urging the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) to use the demise of his former campaign manager Jake Otanka Obestebi Lamptey to rally votes for the party. 

"My appeal is for the party to close the ranks to hold together to put our side of the arguments across to Ghana and hope that Ghana will return the NPP to power," Mr. Kufour told Joy News' Beatrice Adu in an exclusive interview.

The ex-president said working to bring the NPP back to power will mean that, "Jake would not have served in vain altogether we would have in ways that he really deserve."  

His comment comes as the NPP and the family of Mr. Lamptey mourn his death. He died on Sunday in London following a short illness. 

Mr. Kufour who said he is yet to recover from the shock and sadness remembers Jake Obestebi Lamptey as someone who was excellent in all he did.

"I would say that filling the vacuum he has left might be quite a challenge, it is not easy. Having said that, nobody is indepensable, we all come and go when our time is up, but he played his role very well.

He believes that the NPP is one of the biggest parties in Ghana and is full of people with talent, therefore for anyone to "make a statement that there is no one like Jake is too much".

"I didn’t get to know of his illness. Three years ago he went to South Africa and came back a bit slimmed. He told me he was on diet. Last year again, I saw him slimmed and I thought it was part of the dieting. For the past three months, I have not seen him and it didn’t occur to me that he was not well," said Mr Kufour. 

Mr. Kufour extolled Mr Lampety's virtues describing him as, "a devout Danquah Busia man committed to the tenets of the tradition, rule of law, respect for human right, respect for freedom of thought, speech and association. He was also a respecter of individual initiative (private sector)."