Ken Agyapong enters NPP race to fight corruption

As if drawing inspiration from the counseling by the renowned Kumasi Islamic spiritualist, Sheikh Mallam Musah that he and two others stand the best chance of ending the New Patriotic Party’s losing ways, tough-talking Member of Parliament for Assin Central, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong is said to have taken the challenge and is lacing his boots to contest his party’s upcoming flagbearer-ship race.

The Assin Central MP, who recently charged NPP delegates to vote out the current executives because they are corrupt, is said to have vowed to lead the party into the 2016 elections, especially when Nana Akufo-Addo does not make a third time comeback.

Mr. Agyapong, who on Tuesday showed deep remorse and apologized to Dr. Wereko Brobbey for wrongly attacking him for taking NPP leaders to task, is reported to have told close associates that in the event that any party member attempts to scuttle his dream, he is prepared to run as an independent presidential candidate.

Aside the prediction on him by Sheik Mallam Musah as the possible “Joshua” of the NPP, what is said to be driving the Assin Central legislator, who is well-known for vituperative invectives on political opponents and persons he perceived as corrupt, is his belief that he has won the hearts of many in and outside the NPP with his philanthropic heart and uncompromising posture on issues of corruption.

Also, he is said to have been further embolden and indeed, encouraged by friends who say he (Kennedy Agyapong) was more charismatic and resourceful than the Benin President, Thomas Yayi Boni, who contested and won power as an independent presidential candidate.

According to sources close to Hon. Agyapong, who is also the ranking member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Communications, the Assin Central legislator believes his unflinching support to the party with resources over the years would aide him go pass any candidate at congress.

A Kumasi-based Islamic Spiritualist, Sheikh Mallam Musah has repeatedly warned Nana Akufo-Addo to back –off from the presidency and instead allow persons like Hon. Kennedy Agyapong, Alan Kyerematen or Kwabena Agyapong who are spiritually endowed to be president, to lead the NPP into any presidential elections.

If the Sheikh’s prediction is anything to go by, then Ken Agyapong stands the best chance of leading the party, especially as Kwabena Agyapong has declared his intension to contest for the party’s General Secretary post whiles Mr Kyerematen whose presidential ambitions is wobbling after his former boss and mentor, former President Kufuor is said to have dumped him and is now rooting for the man currently making waves in NPP and former Ofinso North MP, Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku.

Party insiders say, Mr Kyerematen’s appetite for the WTO job to the neglect of his commitment to Mr Kufuor’s agenda to snatch the party leadership from Nana Akufo-Addo has diminished his image in the eyes of the former president who thus ‘dropped’ him before experimenting with his erstwhile heirs Dr Richard Anane and former Cocobod CEO and MP for Subin, Isaac Osei.

Subsequently, Mr. Kufuor’s dalliance with any of the two could not materialize as Dr. Richard Anane’s baggage of immoral behaviour in the infamous HIV-AIDS conference is so damming that Ghanaians would not easily forget and entrust the destiny of this country to him. On Mr. Isaac Osei, he is considered as too calm and gentle to match Nana Akufo-Addo and give him a run for his money, hence the union with Akufo-Addo’s fiercest critic and onetime contender, Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku.

Even with this, sources close to Kennedy Agyapong said he is not perturbed by the political clout of any persons in party, and that his resolve to contest for president is to jail all corrupt officials of the NPP and NDC in order to make the country a better place for ordinary Ghanaians.

The source said it is the strong conviction of the braggart legislator, who owns some media houses in the country that the continuous existence of persons he perceived as corrupt in society would deny him the opportunity to run his government if he was elected as president, hence the need to jail all of them without looking at which party they belong.

Meanwhile, some political pundits have hailed the braggart legislator’s presidential ambition saying “the state that the country finds itself needs a business-oriented person and someone who does not shield corruption like Kennedy Agyapong to be in the driving seat.”