Vice President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, has reiterated that Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the outgoing Vice President and the flagbearer for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2024 elections, remains the better choice for Ghana.

Prior to the election, Bentil strongly advocated for Dr. Bawumia on social media, encouraging Ghanaians to support him over former President John Mahama.

A week after Dr. Bawumia’s defeat to Mahama in the presidential race, Bentil reaffirmed his backing for Bawumia during a discussion on Joy News’ Newsfile, asserting that Bawumia is still the superior candidate compared to Mahama of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).

“I still believe that Dr Bawumia is the better candidate. He [John Mahama] disagreed with me, but he has won fair and square. I wish President Mahama well. If he succeeds, he succeeds for all of us, but for me, Dr Bawumia was the better candidate,” he told Samson Lardy on the show.

According to Bentil, his belief is supported by research conducted by IMANI in February 2024, ten months before the December 7 polls.

He explained the outcome of the research, saying, “I took a principled position. What you see here is research we did in February, which showed us that it looked like President Mahama would win, but this was driven by the anger of the Ghanaian people. What I did was to say, ‘Drop your anger and look at the candidates’, and I still believe Dr Bawumia was the better candidate.”

During the same discussion, Kofi Adams, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Buem in the Oti Region from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), disagreed with Kofi Bentil.

Adams argued that rather than debating which candidate was the better choice for Ghana, Bentil and IMANI Africa should have focused more on addressing the arrogance of the NPP government and other pressing social issues affecting the country.

Without allowing Mr Bentil to elaborate on his point, the MP quickly countered, saying, “They ignored the economy, ignored the arrogance, ignored the environmental destruction that was going on, and were just looking at strains.”

Meanwhile, some NPP members have argued that Dr Bawumia was punished for sins he did not commit and that the NPP lost because their members did not turn out to vote in their numbers.