How To Choose Your Running Mate? - Nana Akomea Guides Dr. Bawumia

As the New Patriotic Party awaits the candidate to partner their flagbearer, Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, in this year's December 7 elections, names of notable people within the party have been dropping for consideration.

Some members and supporters have been submitting their favorites for the Running Mate position and among the names are Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the Energy Minister, Henry Kwabena Kokofu, Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency, Nana Akomea, STC boss, among others.

There have also been incessant calls on Dr. Bawumia to choose his Running Mate from the Ashanti Region since the Region is the stronghold of the party and, to a section of the rank and file of the NPP, a Running Mate from the Region is strategic to defeating the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) and their leader, John Dramani Mahama.

Tackling the NPP's quest for Running Mate on Peace FM's morning show "Kokrokoo", Nana Akomea shared his thoughts on who is the right candidate for the slot.

To him, the way to go in choosing the candidate is for the Vice President to list ten names of people he believes fit the position and choose research teams to conduct thorough survey about them by directly going to the grass roots to tell their preferred candidate.

Guiding the Veep on what to do, he said; "He should present a list of people he feels he can work with and they qualify. He should choose about nine or ten people and allow us to do research about them for him...Go across the country and show the list to the party faithfuls to tell us who they think will help the party if selected as Running Mate.

"So, when they (researchers) finish this work, maybe two groups so that you can compare; so when they come and let's say three names are leading, it means these names are coming from the ground...Then you can present these three names to the bigwigs in the party to choose one so that the choice will be driven by data and not sentiment."

He believed this will inform Dr. Bawumia as to who the party really desires to join him on the presidential ticket.

"If you want unique results, your preparations should also be unique," he said.

Nana Akomea however threw shade at the opposition National Democratic Congress when asked by the host of the show, Nana Yaw Kesseh, to tell exactly the date for the selection of the Running Mate.

"Even the NDC that elected their candidate like a year ago hasn't presented theirs yet", he replied, adding "we didn't give him (Bawumia) a date but I feel that by May, we should have finished selection".