2020 Elections: Don’t run; you’re old – Nyaho Tamakloe to Akufo Addo

A Founding member of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe has advised President Akufo Addo against seeking for another four year term in office after his first term ends in 2020.

President Nana Akufo-Addo has revealed he’s still undecided on leading his governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2020 polls.

According to him, there have been moves by the NPP to get him to contest as the party’s presidential candidate in the 2020 polls.

He however said he was yet to give a firm answer to the calls from the rank and file of the party.

Speaking on a visit to his alma mater — Lancing Secondary School in the United Kingdom — recently, he said: “My party is keen on the agenda that I go again in 2020; we will see.”

But Dr. Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe who was Ghana’s Ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro in an interview with Politics & Power Magazine on a wide range of issues in responding to the question “Do you think it would be a good idea for him to run again?” answered:

“A Nana Addo ticket? I don’t think it would be good idea for him. Not the question of supporting or opposing it. If he asks my personal advice, I’d ask him not to. That is the way I will put it because age is not on his side and all this sort of tension he doesn’t really need it. All that I would have expected him to do is within this period of four years, he should work hard to leave a mark! That’s all.”

A nephew and confidante of President Akufo-Addo, Gabby Asare Otchere-Darko, had earlier hinted that it is highly possible that the President will run for a second term.

According to the former Executive Director of the Danquah Institute, President Akufo-Addo is lacing his boots to contest the 2020 elections.

Speaking at the NPP delegates conference in Eastern Regional capital Koforidua, Mr Otchere-Darko posited that the President has enough energy to contest and win the 2020 elections.

He added that due to the passion which the President has for the job, four years will not be enough for him to institute all his plans for a better Ghana

He indicated; “My fear is that he works too hard. In terms of his physical endurance, he has more than even me, and I am 20 years younger than him…and he is alert.

“What feeds the physical is also the conviction. He feels that he has to achieve something and I feel he paces himself in a way that can keep him going in a sense that it is the work that keeps him going. It is not about the perks of the office,” he added.

The debate about whether Akufo-Addo will seek reelection surfaced after the president told Journalists at the Jubilee House last year that he may not be on the ballot in 2020.