Former Second Vice Chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sammy Crabbe, has said that the challenges President Akufo-Addo may be facing as far as achieving his targets are concerned may be because he is surrounded by bootlickers.

He believes the people around the President are not frank enough to tell him the issues on the ground as they are for which reason managing the affairs of the state might be a difficult task to achieve.

“It is more difficult when somehow you find yourself in a situation where you have sycophants too surrounding you, they will not initiate or do anything but as you go they will 'burn out'.”

Sammy Crabbe believes that the President needs people who will without fear or favour, point out the wrongs when the need arises and not necessarily agree with him every time for fear that they may fall out of favour with him.

“Sometimes you probably have to have a cabinet of rivals to achieve what you want to achieve, like what Abraham Lincoln did…….masterfully put them together like Kufour did,” he said on '21 minutes with KKB’.



Mr Crabbe explained that during President Kufuor’s era, he brought into his government people who didn’t like him, people who wanted him out as a candidate but he because they had what he needed, he masterfully coordinated them and now the name Kufour is associated with good deeds.

A year to the 2016 general elections, the National Executive Committee of the NPP suspended Mr Crabbe indefinitely alongside then-General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong and then-Chairman Paul Afoko, for, among other things, making utterances that were injurious to the chances of the then-opposition party's presidential candidate at the time, Nana Akufo-Addo.

Their suspension has not yet been reversed but Mr Crabbe has entered the race to give Acting Chairman Freddy Blay some competition.

Meanwhile, National Chairmanship race has been predicted to be a straight battle between current Acting National Chairman, Freddie Blay, and a former National First Vice Chairman of the Party, Mr Stephen Ntim.