Former President John Agyekum Kufuor has disclosed what he told the flag bearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, when he first met him in London over two decades ago.
According to the former President, although Dr. Bawumia was not a frontrunner in the NPP at the time, he was doing exploits with his contribution as a research assistant to the then Governor of the Bank of Ghana.
After presenting a lecture to economic moguls in the United Kingdom at the time, John Kufuor says he envisioned then young Bawumia making strides in the political landscape of Ghana, admonishing him not to relent on what he had started.
The second President of Ghana’s Fourth Republic, was speaking prior to the Vice President and NPP’s flag bearer’s speech at the University of Professional Studies in Accra (UPSA) to spell out his vision to Ghanaians.
In his words, Mr. Kufuor said Bawumia was a man of destiny.
“This young man delivered a paper at an international conference of giants from the city of London in financial wealth and some powerful people of governments.
“But there was something in his statement and about him. In fact till then, I hadn’t spoken with him ever before. But I sent somebody; “go and call me that young man”, he came, I congratulated him and I don’t know what came in me. Prophetically I told him, “carry on like that and you’ll go far.”
“Then in 2008 when I was stepping down as the party had chosen then candidate Akufo-Addo, who later became President and somehow Akufo-Addo named the same young man to be his running mate. Bawumia was not even in the main realm of the party,” he disclosed at the event.
Speaking further, the NPP’s first candidate to become President under the Fourth Republic indicated that, his meeting again with Dr. Bawumia at a party event in Accra, was when he tagged him a man of destiny.
“…then at a party meeting at the Alisa Hotel, I met him again and I remembered my first meeting with him in London and what I told him then it dawned on me again to, –call it prophesy, –I told this party just to allow this man to carry on, man of destiny,” he revealed.
Prior to becoming flag bearer of the NPP, Dr. Bawumia gave so many lectures which according some political pundits, made the magic for the NPP to flip power from the then ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC).
This address, is the first he is going to give after assuming the office of the party’s presidential candidate.
