Can Haruna Iddrisu Become the NDC's Vice-Presidential Candidate in 2028? ‎

As Ghana's National Democratic Congress begins the slow, cautious dance of succession planning ahead of 2028, no name has surfaced more consistently or more controversially than that of Haruna Iddrisu, the Minister of Education and six-term Member of Parliament for Tamale South.

The question dividing party watchers is no longer whether he is a serious player in NDC politics, but which prize he is actually positioning for: the party's flagbearer slot, or the vice-presidential ticket beneath Vice President Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang.

A frontrunner by the numbers
Across a string of Global InfoAnalytics polls conducted between mid-2025 and late 2025, Iddrisu has repeatedly topped internal party preference surveys, typically polling in the high-20s to low-30s among a crowded field that includes NDC National Chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketiah, Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson, Chief of Staff Julius Debrah, and the Vice President herself.

His strongest numbers come from NDC-only samples and swing regions, where he has at times cleared 45 percent in three-way match-ups excluding Ato Forson. He has also shown unusually broad appeal across educational brackets leading among both JHS-level and tertiary-educated respondents, a spread few other contenders can claim.

That breadth is the core of the case for Iddrisu: a Tamale South MP with northern roots who nonetheless polls competitively in the south, giving him a cross-regional profile the NDC has historically prized in its most successful tickets.

The VP-slot rumour mill
The polling strength on the presidential question has increasingly been read alongside a separate, murkier storyline his positioning for the vice-presidential slot on a possible Opoku-Agyemang ticket. Minority Leader Alexander Afenyo-Markin alleged in January 2026 that the Vice President had already settled on Iddrisu as her preferred running mate, a claim NDC officials have neither confirmed nor moved to shut down.

Around the same period, broadcaster Paul Adom-Otchere alleged an emerging rivalry between Iddrisu and Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, both said to be courting the same running-mate slot beneath Opoku-Agyemang, with Ablakwa drawing on a longer personal history with the Vice President from her time as Education Minister.

Iddrisu himself has been the most consistent voice pumping the brakes on all of this. He has publicly endorsed Opoku-Agyemang as a suitable flagbearer, said he hopes to see Ghana's first elected female president, and in February 2026 had his office formally disown a wave of social media posters projecting him as a flagbearer aspirant, dismissing them as fabricated and reaffirming that his focus remained on his ministerial brief.

Reading the contradiction
The gap between "frontrunner in the polls" and "denies any ambition" is not necessarily disingenuous it is standard NDC choreography. Ghanaian succession politics rewards patience and discourages the appearance of hunger; an aspirant who appears to be campaigning too early, or against a sitting Vice President, risks being cast as disloyal or divisive.

Iddrisu's public deference to Opoku-Agyemang can be read as either genuine support for her candidacy, positioning himself as her logical running mate rather than her rival, or simple tactical camouflage while the party's internal mood is tested.

What works in his favour
Polling durability. Unlike some rivals whose numbers fluctuate sharply with news cycles, Iddrisu's lead has held across multiple independent surveys over more than a year.

Cross-regional and cross-educational appeal. His strength among northern, Zongo, and swing-region voters complements a southern-anchored flagbearer such as Opoku-Agyemang, which is precisely the balancing logic NDC tickets have followed before.

Institutional weight. As Education Minister and a six-term MP, he carries a governing record and parliamentary seniority that few potential running mates can match.

What works against him
The Ablakwa factor. Ablakwa's longer personal and institutional relationship with Opoku-Agyemang, and his own base in the Volta Region a bloc the NDC cannot afford to under-mobilize makes him a genuine competitor for the same slot.

Chairman and technocrat resistance. Asiedu Nketiah and Ato Forson remain close behind him in most polling and retain independent bases within the party machinery that could complicate any coronation.

The optics of ambition. Every poll that puts him ahead of the Vice President on the presidential question, rather than merely as her running mate, risks being read by rivals as evidence he is angling higher than the VP slot a perception his camp has worked hard, so far, to manage down.

The bottom line
Haruna Iddrisu enters this stretch of the succession race in an unusually strong position: broadly popular, institutionally seasoned, and geographically complementary to the party's most likely flagbearer.

But strength in the polls has not yet translated into an announced running-mate arrangement, and the Ablakwa rivalry real or exaggerated by commentators suggests the NDC's internal contest for the number-two slot is far from settled. Barring a formal endorsement from Opoku-Agyemang or the party's leadership organs, Iddrisu's chances should be read as strong but unconfirmed: he is the man to beat, not yet the man chosen.

This analysis draws on public polling by Global InfoAnalytics and reporting from Graphic Online, MyJoyOnline, GhanaWeb, Pulse Ghana, News Ghana, and Adomonline through early 2026.

Mustapha Bature Sallama
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,

International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. ( USIP)

[email protected]
+233555275880