Why Dr. Bawumia Phoned Ken Agyapong To Apologise

Vice President of Ghana, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has personally reached out to the Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Hon. Kennedy Agyapong, to apologise for any unfortunate incident that might have occurred during the recent super delegates’ election of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

This was revealed by the campaign coordinator for Dr. Bawumia’s campaign and Director-General of the National Lottery Authority (NLA) Sammi Awuku, during an interview with Bernard Avle on Citi Tv’s The Point of View on Monday night.

Mr Awuku, while touching on Dr. Bawumia’s countenance, before, doing, and after the party’s Super Delegates congress on August 26th, 2023, said that he was present when Dr. Bawumia after the elections, spoke to Hon. Agyapong last week and listened to his concerns and grievances.

“Let me say, for instance, the Hon. Kennedy Agyapong like this. Last week, I was personally present when the Vice President spoke to him, to listen to Ken as well on some of the issues that he has raised, and he said that me and my team are very sorry for whatever might have happened, but we are also going to go a step further to assist the party in its investigation,” Awuku said.

This information is particularly critical because, during the delegates’ conference on August 26th, a viral video showed Hon. Agyapong screaming threats at the President and his Vice for allegedly asking for his polling agent to be sent away. Mr. Agyapong said he would give the two leaders a “showdown” in response to the said attacks on his agents during the elections.

“President Akufo-Addo, I will give you a showdown in this country, I swear to God. Vice President, I will give you a showdown for chasing my agent away. I swear to God. You will hear what will happen here. I swear to God, I will challenge President Akufo-Addo big time,” Mr Agyapong said in fury.

However following this and the ensuing response by party authorities to investigate the incident, Mr Awuku noted that Dr. Bawumia, who just wants peace to prevail, is deeply saddened by any incident that might have caused personal loss or damage to anyone because of the electoral process. He said that Dr Bawumia has, beyond contacting Mr Agyapong, has also reached out to his other colleagues who contested the election.

“Dr. Bawumia is deeply saddened about any unfortunate incident that took place. And he believes that we don’t need to have anybody suffering personal loss or damage because of an electoral process. And it is something that he has also personally placed and reached out to his colleagues who contested in the process,” Mr Awuku added.

He also said that Dr. Bawumia and his team are willing to assist the party in any investigation and condemn any act of vandalism or violence that might have taken place.

“For almost everybody who has been mentioned, named, or suspected to have participated in anything that might have personally injured somebody, for our side, from the Dr. Bawumia side, we are willing to assist the party in any investigation, and we condemn any act of vandalism and any act that took place and any isolated reported incident,” he mentioned.

Awuku further explained the strategy and approach that Dr. Bawumia used to win the superdelegates’ election with 68.15% of the votes. He said that Dr. Bawumia personally interacted with almost all the 929 delegates who cast their ballots on August 26th. He also paid visits to over 70% of them and placed personal calls to some of them 48 hours before the election.

“Our strategy leading to August 26th was, first of all, to make sure we tick all the boxes. Make sure you have reached out to each and every single person who is likely to cast a vote. He also, in the run-up to August 26th, apart from having met the Members of Parliament as a group, having paid over 95% of these 137 Members of Parliament personal visits at home, Dr. Bawumia, 48 hours before the super delegates sat behind his phone and placed personal calls, the run-up to the get-out-the-vote on August 26th.”

He said that their target was to get 70% of the votes based on their polling and profiling, but they fell short by 1.85%. He said that they have done a review of their performance region by region and identified some areas for improvement.

“Our target, to be very honest with you, and I am going to be very honest with you on this show, we were expecting to get 70% based on all our polling, based on all our profiling ahead of August 26th. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the 70%, but we had 68.15%. So for us as a campaign team, my colleagues, both in the strategy and in the operations team, personally doing a review, region by region, and so far we have done 15 out of 16 regions, an analysis of what happened.”

He also commended the party’s Elections Committee for their supervision and good job in conducting a free and fair election.

The super delegates’ election was held on August 26th to select the presidential candidate of the NPP for the 2024 general elections. Dr. Bawumia emerged as the winner with 629 votes out of 929 valid votes cast. He was followed by Kennedy Agyapong with 132 votes representing 14.3%, Alan Kyerematen with 95 votes representing 10.29%, Owusu Afriyie Akoto with 36 representing 4.1%, and Francis Addai-Nimoh with 9 votes.

The election was marred by some reports of violence, intimidation, and bribery in some regions.

The NPP has set up a committee to investigate the allegations and complaints and take appropriate actions.

THANK YOU for constantly reading stories on TodayGhanaMedia.com, a news publishing website from Ghana. Kindly like, follow, comment, and SHARE stories on all social media platforms for more entertaining updates!