Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Ashanti region Bernard Antwi Boasiako has said former president John Mahama will be the easiest candidate to beat in Election 2020.

Bernard Antwi Bosiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi, has served notice the ruling NPP will force the main opposition party to present Mahama as their flagbearer for the next general polls.

“Whenever I hear former President John Dramani Mahama as coming for 2020, then I’m happy,” Chairman Wontumi said on GhOne TV’s State of Affairs show.

He added: “I pray every day that the NDC brings former President Mahama. I can challenge the former President because he became president by default. Even at the Supreme Court, they said in 2012 there was ballot stuffing. So, we are going to force the NDC to bring former President Mahama.”

“When political power changed hands to the NPP in 2000, there was run-off, the 2008 elections had run-off, but, in 2016 when the NDC was exiting there was no run-off and the margin of votes was sound for NPP.

“Former President Mahama is our (NPP) wife. If you look at the vote difference, and statistics and the way it went, we want President Mahama to contest in 2020,” the NPP firebrand opined.

The NPP chair, who became the first person to retain the seat after his first term, said, “I have appetite in the Ashanti Region for 2020 elections. I’m angry and hungry for 2020. I want 2020 to even happen today. I want people to vote for NPP and Ashantis will vote for NPP again.”

“Prior to the last election, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was not the President, but since becoming the President, Nana Akufo-Addo has brought free Senior High School (SHS), restored nurses allowance and teachers training allowance. As for me I compare him to Gordon Guggisberg,” the regional chairman added.

Asked if President Akufo-Addo had done better than Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first president, he said Dr Nkrumah, unlike Nana Akufo-Addo, came to meet money, while President Akufo-Addo came to meet debts.

He told the broadcaster that the NPP would improve on its 2016 votes of 1.2 million and is now targeting two million votes in the Ashanti region.

According to him, since 1992 when democratic rule started in Ghana, “four people have been elected to lead Ashanti Region NPP and I am the fourth one and the only one who retained the seat as a regional chairman.

“Nobody had ever retained the seat for a second term like me or nobody had had eight years, but I have broken that jinx. It was God,” he stated.

On job creation, he said “the Holy Bible even said ‘the hand that does not work must not eat’, so everybody ought to work. I had a licence and my small scale mining was decent. I am like you and if you are popular people have a way of talking about you.

“I will appeal to the government that though it had done well, especially with free SHS, mining is also somebody’s work so those engaging in small scale mining who are recognised by the Mineral’s Commission, we should assist them, but those in galamsey we have to stop them from destroying our water bodies.”