Ghana's Vice President Alhaj i Aliu Mahama has become the f irst person to publicly announce he is quitting politics after a bruising nation a l primaries of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) that saw him gain only 6.3 per cent of votes of the 2,300 delegates last Saturday.

Aliu, a building contractor by profession who has been vice president since 2001 , was quoted by an Accra-based radio station, Joy FM, that he was quitting politics for good after failing in his bid to be the party's flag bearer in next year' s presidential election. He said he would never return to politics because two terms in office as vice pr esident were sufficient for him.

The primaries, contested by 17 people, were won by former Foreign Minister Nana Akuffo-Addo who had 1,096 votes ( 47.9%). He was followed by former Trade and In d ustry minister Alan Kyerematen who had 738 votes (32.5%).

Only three contestants polled more than five per cent of the votes while seven of them had less than one per cent in the bitter contest that was heavily critici s ed by the public for the huge amounts of money that contestants spent.

Aliu, who is from the deprived north of Ghana, said he had expected to perform b etter than what delegates gave him, adding that the results did not reflect the r un of play.

"As you know I had 146 votes as had been announced here but I didn't expect that actually because I had done a lot of work and I thought that truly, that certai n ly did not reflect the run of play," he said.

He said he and his defeated colleagues would rally behind the winner. "The People have talked; the delegates have talked so we'll go behind our man…we 'll all rally behind Nana Akufo-Addo," he said.

"I want to have my cool, go into private life, you know...No! No! Never! I won't , I won't, as I said, eight years is enough for me."

Many of the other contestants also expressed surprise to the results saying they did not believe how the voting went.