Spokesperson for NPP flagbearer Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Health Committee, Dr Ekua Amoakoh, says a briefing by Dr Bawumia helped convince her to become more committed to the party ahead of the 2024 general elections.
She said she had been largely detached from the NPP before taking up research into its health sector record, but her findings and an encounter with Dr Bawumia changed her perspective.
Speaking in a personality profile interview on JoyNews’ PM Express with Emefa Adeti, Dr Amoakoh said her limited political engagement at the time was reflected in her social media activity.
“Ahead of 2024, I wasn’t really interested in the NPP too much. Even if you want to go back and look at my social media, I was not even writing anything NPP or doing anything. I was just detached. There was like a disconnection,” she said.
Dr Amoakoh said her involvement in research into the party’s health sector performance gave her a different view of its record.
“But then when I started going to do the research, I saw how much we had actually achieved,” she said.
She said her interest deepened after attending a briefing by Dr Bawumia to party communicators shortly before the launch of the NPP’s manifesto.
“After I listened to him that day, I was like, ‘Okay, I think I see what these people are on about. There’s something there.’ He looked like he was very passionate about solving problems,” she recounted.
Dr Amoakoh said she was particularly impressed by Dr Bawumia’s account of how he approached policy challenges, including the domestic gold purchase programme.
She described his ability to devise unconventional solutions to economic problems as one of the qualities that drew her towards his leadership.
“He was talking about how he came up with the domestic gold purchase programme, about how MTN needed some money. I thought that whole ability to think of something out of the box to fix a problem was maybe the type of person whose leadership could get us to a point of some prosperity,” she said.
Her comments reflect her personal assessment of Dr Bawumia’s policy approach and the influence it had on her political commitment.
Dr Amoakoh argued that Ghana needed leadership focused not only on tackling corruption but also on deliberately creating the conditions for economic growth and prosperity.
“I don’t think it’s just punishing corruption. It’s also being intentional about generating prosperity,” she said.
She cited South Korea and China as examples of countries that pursued approaches she believes helped accelerate their economic development.
She said Ghana appeared to be progressing more slowly than countries that had once faced comparable economic challenges.
“If you look at Ghana, it looks like we are marking time. We’re walking slowly when we could have been maybe galloping or jumping at the pace of Singapore and all the other countries,” she said.
Dr Amoakoh also argued that Ghana needed leaders who could set out a clear strategy for generating wealth and expanding economic opportunities.
Her remarks offer insight into the considerations that shaped her political involvement ahead of the 2024 elections and her support for Dr Bawumia’s approach to governance.
Dr Amoakoh made the comments during her personality profile interview on JoyNews’ PM Express with Emefa Adeti.