Elections Not Popularity Contest But About Competence – Nduom

The Presidential candidate of the Progressive People's Party (PPP) for the 2016 elections, Papa Kwesi Nduom, has said that presidents should be elected based on their ability to bring about positive change and not just based on their popularity. There have been suggestions from some voters and pollsters that the PPP has no chance of winning the elections as their candidate is not as popular as John Dramani Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and the opposition New Patriotic Party's (NPP) Nana Akufo Addo.

However, according to Nduom, it is important for voters to choose candidates who can make their lives better and not one who appears to have the support of the masses.

“We have reached a point in Ghana where we should begin to talk about competency, ability, can this person do the job or not? If you own a store and want an accountant to sit there and count your money for you every day, you don't go round and find the most popular person. You want the best person, the one who has the accounting skills to do the job for you,” Papa Kwesi said on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday.

“Sometimes in Ghana, you'll find people saying ' he's handsome', 'he's tall', 'he's short', no. Who has the right ability, the right competency, the right experience to match up to the problem we have today.”

It's not about social media following , it's what you do with it

Papa Kwesi Nduom dismissed comparisons with other presidential candidates with regards to their level of followership on social media.

Both President Mahama and Nana Addo have a considerably larger social media following than the PPP flagbearer.

President Mahama has 944, 000 likes on his official Facebook page and 243, 000 followers on Twitter, while 743, 000 people have liked Nana Addo's Facebook page and 99, 000 followers on Twitter.

Nduom on the other hand has about 266, 000 likes on his Facebook page and about  47, 000 followers on Twitter.

However, Nduom, who revealed that he personally manages his Facebook account, stated that it was important for Ghanaians to hear consistently and directly from anyone aspiring to be president

“Back in 2012, I had a lot more than the rest of them but others caught up and felt that the likes was what they were looking for. It's okay to have many likes but it's what you do with it that's important. I have content, better content which I put there myself,” he said.

“I  think about the content and put it there myself. If you go to my page, you'll find that it has meaningful content. What do we want to do about education, what do we want to do about jobs, I write. Consistently, we have over 100, 000 who get to see those things and use them. Who better to put there directly what it is that I am thinking, it's me. ”