NDC FLAGBEARERSHIP RACE: SPIO GARBRAH LAUNCHES ESSAY CONTEST

Call it an innovation of the century. For a Presidential aspirant to launch a contest asking party communicators to write an essay on why he is the best candidate to run as flagbearer of a party is something Ghana’s political landscape is seeing for the first time.

Well, former Trades Minister Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah is definitely not leaving anything to chance as he takes his quest to be the NDC flagbearer for the 2020 presidential election a notch higher. The 2020 elections is seventeen months away and the race for the topmost job in the country is getting keen. First will be the hurdle of flagbearership which has to be jumped. Within the NPP, not much is jostling for the position is going on because many contend the sitting President Nana Akufo Addo will be running for a second term. But in the camp of the opposition National Democratic Congress however, the heat is on. At least five people have declared their intention to contest. Former National Health Insurance Boss, Sylvester Mensah, long serving Member of Parliament, Alban Bagbin, former Vice Chancellor of UPSA Professor Joshua Alabi, former President John Mahama and former Trades Minister, Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah.

Well Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah is determined to lead the NDC party in the 2020 Presidential elections and believes the party’s quest to wrestle power from the ruling NPP government will depend on the prowess of communicators of the party.

So guess what he plans to do? He is putting the 29,000 NDC elected communicators at the branch and constituency levels as well as aspiring regional and national communicators to test. A contest has been launched for the party’s communicators to write an essay on “Why they think Dr Spio-Garbrah will be a good Leader of NDC and a very good President of Ghana.”

And they will not just be showing their prowess in communication by this contest. They will be awarded cash prices.

The overall winner is to receive GHc 3,000; second place, GHc 2,000; third place, GHc 1,000, while fourth and fifth will receive GHc500 each.

The first three winners will also have the opportunity of receiving internship in communication under the tutelage of Dr Spio-Garbrah for some months.

Dr Spio-Garbrah would also make arrangement for the winners to further their education in or outside the country. With the seeming harsh economy, you bet many will jump on this opportunity. But how this contest will inure to his benefit when the time for the party’s delegates congress to elect a flagbearer comes is what many have been left wondering.