Member of Parliament for Odododiodio, Nii Lante Vanderpuye, has vowed to use his energy to lead the campaign of former President John Dramani Mahama ahead of the December 7 presidential elections.
He says he has God-given talents that he used in helping the late Professor John Evans Atta Mills to be president. He says he will use these same talents to ensure the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) wins the elections to be president again.
Nii Lante Vanderpuye has been the MP for the constituency since 2013. He was elected as MP during the 2012 elections but he voluntarily bowed out from Parliament by not contesting in the NDC parliamentary primaries ahead of the 2024 elections.
Explaining his decision to exit Parliament while speaking with TV3’s Keminni Amanor in a yet-to-be-aired interview, the former Minister of Youth and Sports said “We are getting old and as such we are giving the young ones opportunity. Because some of us went to the background, we have a lot more young people now, look at Beatrice Annang, look at the young communicators coming up now, they are doing wonderfully well. Sammy Gyamfi Malik Basintale, if we were still there those young ones would not be known or would not be seen, so we would have created a gap and a vacuum.
12yrs as MP in Odododiodio has been stressful – Nii Lante Vanderpuye
“I have decided that I could contribute better to the national campaign than narrowing myself to Odododiodio, I want to be part and parcel of what to be done to make John Mahama president again. I think I have something that God gave me. I spearheaded the campaign of the late President Mills to become president and I want to pull the same talent and knowledge to use again at the national level.
“The constituency has been a bit stressful for twelve years, it has not been easy at all, for twelve years and I think I need to take a breather, I am not as young as I used to be, I am quite old now getting towards 60 years and as such the energy and the fire is not there as it used to be so my younger persons should take over and I will support that person.”
The full interview airs on TV3 on Sunday at 2PM
Touching on the abysmal performance of the Black Stars in the AFCON tournament in Ivory Coast, he said he did not expect the senior national team of Ghana to put up any good performance because they were ill-prepared.
“I was not confident in the Black Stars achieving anything. Critically speaking, I followed their preparation for the tournament and they were ill-prepared, there was no way they could have achieved anything,” he said.