Richard Ahiagbah, Director of Communications of the NPP
Following the victory of the incumbent All Progressive Congress’ (APC) candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in Nigeria’s just-ended presidential election, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) appears inspired in its determination “to break the eight-year jinx” in Ghana’s political history.
The 70-year-old veteran politician won the election with 37% of the popular votes, while his main rival Atiku Abubakar polled 29%, with Labour’s Peter Obi obtaining 25%.
Speaking exclusively with the Director of Communications of the NPP, Richard Ahiagbah, he expressed confidence that NPP will replicate the APC’s 3rd term electoral victory in the 2024 general elections.
Mr Ahiagbah noted that the two countries share similar political histories, saying that was why most Ghanaians had been glued to their TV sets monitoring political events in Nigeria.
He stressed that in spite of severe economic hardship in Nigeria, Tinubu, from the governing party, won the presidential election. This, he indicated, signifies Nigerians’ understanding and reflection of the situation the country is facing.
He said for APC to have “broken the eight” in Nigeria, with a new candidate, brings good news, reiterating that “NPP also will break the eight with a new candidate”.
People’s understanding
He said, notwithstanding the economic turmoil in Nigeria, where the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), for instance, had said her annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate had declined in 2022, the people reposed trust in incumbent government to turn things around.
Per the statistics, he said, Nigeria’s GDP stood at 3.10 per cent, a decline from the 3.40 per cent recorded in 2021. He added that, according to the NBS’s GDP report, the performance of industry and agriculture declined in 2022, compared to 2021.
The research, he disclosed, did point out that Nigeria’s GDP increased by 3.52 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2022, driven by the service sector.
He said the statistic showed an increase of 1.27 percentage points from the third quarter (Q3) of 2022 when it was 2.25 per cent. According to the NBS, he stated, the service sector increased by 5.69 per cent and made up 56.27 per cent of the GDP of the nation, while the agriculture sector underperformed as a result of the devastating flooding that hit the country.
He mentioned that, overall, the annual GDP growth rate in 2022 stood at 3.10 per cent, from the 3.40 per cent reported in 2021. Thus, he noted, the performance of agriculture and industry reduced in 2022 relative to 2021, while the performance of the services sector improved in 2022.
“The real growth of the oil sector was -13.38 per cent (year-on-year) in Q4 2022, indicating a decrease of 5.33 per cent points relative to the rate recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2021,” he pointed out.
The NPP Communications Director attributed these downfalls to the external factors that wreaked on economies the world over. As a result, he said, Tinibu’s win will place him at the helm of Africa’s biggest economy as it confronts a deepening fiscal crisis, acute shortages of local and foreign currency and gasoline, and widespread insecurity.
NPP on course
On Ghana’s economy, he recalled that Mahama’s poor performance was against the NDC inheriting an economy that had discovered oil in commercial quantities and began production in 2010.
This, he noted, shot Ghana’s GDP to 14% in 2011, but subsequently all that growth momentum was vanquished by the NDC through incompetence.
Mr Ahiagbah noted that available data show that the “NPP turned around the contracting economy it inherited from the NDC in 2017 to date”.
He stressed that the NPP government, under leadership of President Akufo-Addo, is on course to restoring the country’s economic stability and growth that existed before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We had done it before, and we were on course to doing it again. Ghana’s economy grew by a remarkable 5.4% in 2021, signifying a strong recovery from the 0.5% growth recorded the previous year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, in the last quarter of 2021, our economy grew at seven percent, only for the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the first quarter of this year to aggravate the effects of COVID-19, and plunge the global economy into even greater turmoil from which it has not yet recovered,” he indicated.
Mr Ahiagbah appealed to the populace to rally behind the NPP government, especially when its remedial interventions to the economic challenges in the country are gradually yielding results.
Supporting the NPP ahead of the 2024 general elections, he maintained, will lead to improvement in living standards, and ensure rapid transformation of the economy.
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