Even before he was officially nominated and approved as the running mate to the flag bearer of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), some described Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh as an “arrogant” person.
But for Kobina Tahir Hammond (KT), that notion and perception of Dr Prempeh is wrong.
To him, Dr Prempeh was a “confident person” who pairs perfectly with Dr Mahamudu Bawumia as flag bearer and running mate of the NPP.
In a media interview in Kumasi on Tuesday, ahead of the official outdooring of Dr Prempeh as running mate, K.T. Hammond jumped to his defence and said people often mistook “confidence” as “arrogance”.
“That’s absolute nonsense. When they can’t compete with you, they come up with all sorts of crap. I don’t understand this business of arrogance. Some people take confidence for arrogance,” K.T. Hammond said in the interview with Joy News.
“The man may be confident, may be knowing what he’s doing. I mean you don’t translate that into arrogance. I have heard one or two people talk about arrogance, but I think that is complete nonsense,” KT Hammond added.
When queried on Dr Prempeh’s track record in the education and energy sectors, K.T. Hammond who is the Member of Parliament (MP) for Adansi-Asokwa in the Ashanti Region maintained that Dr Prempeh like any other human being was not perfect but managed to handle whatever duties he was given to the best of his abilities.
“We don’t have 100 per cent perfect human being. No human can make claim to infallibility. So he may have had one or two difficulties here and there but he is solid and going to pair properly, effectively, comprehensively with our candidate,” he said.
He stressed that the Bawumia/Napo ticket was not only going to “Break the 8” but also relegate the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) into “oblivion”.
“Watch the space. The NDC are prone to say anything at all that comes to their mind. So if they believe that this is a ticket that could easily be tackled, I pray for them. I wish them well. Watch the space. We are going to set history,” the Minister of Trade and Industry said.
