As the days draw closer for the New Patriotic Party flag-bearer Nana Akufo-Addo to choose his running mate for this year's elections, different newspaper reports continue to give conflicting indications as to who is likely to get the nod. While the Ghanaian Observer believes the Manpower, Youth and Employment Minister, Alhaji Boniface Abubakar Saddique is now the frontrunner, The Statesman thinks it is a done deal for Hajia Alima Mahama. According to the The Observer both political analysts and corporate lobbyists are increasingly pointing towards Abubakar Boniface Saddique as the most favourable option. Saddique, two-term Member of Parliament for Salaga and Minister for Manpower, Youth and Employment looks good to get the nod for two reasons. Firstly he has an exemplary track record of performance, which would give a major boost to the performance of a Nana Akufo-Addo administration. He is acknowledged as one of the most cerebrated members of the Kufuor administration applying intellect and pragmatism to achieve impressive results. Quiet and self-effacing, his simplicity masks a razor-sharp mind that he expertly applies to problems and challenges. Perhaps the most outstanding application of these capabilities in the political area was his contributions to the resolution of the seemingly intractable feud between the Abudus and the Andanis that created the Dagbon chieftaincy Crisis. As Minister for the Northern Region and head of the Northern Regional Co-ordinating Council and Chairman of the Regional Security Council, Saddique led the ultimately successful efforts for a peaceful truce in the crisis. Beyond this, both as a civil servant and more recently as a political appointee he has put his intellect to very good use for Ghana. He worked in the Ministry of finance for 13 years rising to Senior Economic Officer before being appointed Deputy Minister for Trade and Industries when the Kufuor administration assumed power in 2001. Since then he has served as Deputy Minister for Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City, then as Northern Regional Minister and as the Minister for Water Resources Works and Housing before taking up his current position as Minister for Manpower Youth and Employment. Instructively, his performance in these various positions has so impressed President John Agyekum Kufuor that he has never been dropped from Ministerial level since the incumbent government came to power nearly eight years ago. Throughout this time, Saddique has been equally busy at Parliament which actual1y is only to be expected considering the depth of his expertise. Between 2001 and 2003 he was on the Finance and Works and Housing Committees. Between 2003 and 2004 he was on the Finance, Roads and Transport Conm1ittees. And since 2006 he has been on the Foreign Affairs and Privileges Committees. In doing all this Saddique , has proved to be one of the brightest minds in Ghana's public sector and a credit to the country's political class. But just as, importantly, he would be , bringing to the NPP ticket the other half of what most political analysts admit would be an unassailable election winning combination. Saddique has an enviable reputation of being one of the very few "squeaky clean" politicians in Ghana free of controversy or scandals throughout his political career. This means if he is chosen as Nana Akufo-Addo's running mate, the opposition will not have any ammunition to use against him as a way of discrediting the NPP's ticket. Besides this, his successful mediation of the Dagbon chieftaincy crisis has made him arguably the most popular politician in Northern Ghana. Indeed, the crisis weary citizenry of the Northern Region now actually call him "Mr. Paracetamol" to show appreciation for providing the cure for that long-running problem. This means Saddique would win for the NPP ticket crucial votes in the North where Nana Akufo-Addo's personal appeal is the weakest. By combining Nana Akufo-Addo's popularity in the south with Boniface Saddique's appeal in the North, the NPP would have put together an unbeatable ticket to the Presidency. The very nature of politics often requires for a trade-off between the sheer quality of a candidate and his or her appeal to the electorate. In Abubakar Boniface Saddique however, the NPP has a top quality technocrat and a very popular politician rolled into one. This is why political pundits and corporate Ghana alike are increasingly seeing him as the perfect counterfoil for Nana Akufo-Addo, in order to win the December presidential elections.