The Fertile Ewe Mind: How Afenyo-Markin Is Rebuilding NPP One Walkout at a Time

Post-defeat reconstruction is never easy, especially when you have lost an election not just at the ballot box, but at the level of soul-searching, ethnic outreach, and plain political honesty. Enter the New Patriotic Party (NPP), 2025 edition: wounded, wobbling, and searching for a saviour to lead it back from the ashes.

And who better to lead this sacred resurrection than an Ewe?

Yes, dear reader, not just any Ewe, but the indomitable Alexander Kwamena Afenyo-Markin, the man whose triple-barrelled name alone inspires the kind of cross-ethnic confusion the NPP has spent decades avoiding. Effutu by location, Ewe by blood, legal by training, and Minority Leader by divine comic timing, Afenyo-Markin has been tasked, perhaps by accident or poetic justice, with rebuilding the most Akan-centric party in Ghanaian history.

How is that for irony?

Walkouts as strategy

You see, the fertile Ewe mind works differently. While the Akan elders in the party might be thinking of grassroots reorganisation, rebuilding trust in Ashanti, or perhaps softening their image in the North, Afenyo-Markin is pioneering a revolutionary strategy: rebuild the party through parliamentary walkouts.

Why speak when you can storm out? Why debate when you can boycott? Who needs persuasion when you can perform protest?

According to insiders (whom we just imagined), Afenyo-Markin believes visibility is best achieved by absence. After all, every time he and his colleagues disappear from the chamber, the media floods with their presence. Genius! A strategy so counter-intuitive, it must be working, somewhere in a parallel universe.

Ethnic optics and party optics

Let us not forget the deeper brilliance of it all. In an ethnic-based Akan party that keeps insisting it is “national in character,” what better way to prove inclusion than by making an Ewe man the face of defeat recovery? It is almost like inviting a vegetarian to revive a kebab joint. It makes a good photo, but you wonder who is doing the seasoning.

Indeed, Afenyo-Markin’s elevation signals boldness. The party, weary of being branded as an Akan machine, has put forward its most articulate non-Akan not to lead in truth, but to lead in image. He is the Ewe face of Akan guilt management, a one-man inclusion strategy meant to help the NPP convince itself that it has changed, while changing absolutely nothing.

But do not be fooled. Behind that calm voice and those polished suits lies a mind sharp enough to know this: the best way to stop the NPP from rising again is to lead its rebuilding yourself. Call it reverse sabotage. Subtle. Surgical. Sublime.

Rebuilding the party by redefining it
Gone are the days of party retreats in Peduase and emergency fundraisers in Kumasi. Under Afenyo-Markin’s fertile mind, rebuilding takes a new turn. Now it is about reinventing political grammar: “opposition” means obstruction, “leadership” means loyalty optics, and “reconciliation” means reminding the Akan old guard that even in defeat, they can trust an Ewe to take the fall when the next one comes.

He has even rebranded “ethnic politics.” In Afenyo-Markin’s Ghana, you do not deny it. You simply redecorate it. Instead of broadening the party's appeal across regions, he has made the NPP more insular, more reactive, and more obsessed with image than substance. Rebuilding, indeed!

The inevitable outcome?

In all this, we must salute Afenyo-Markin’s strategic foresight. If the goal is to prevent the NPP from bouncing back, he is well on his way. The walkouts will continue. The base will shrink. The Akan elders will whisper: “We told you so.” And the opposition benches will echo with absence.

Perhaps, in a few years, when the NPP sits once again licking its wounds after another electoral defeat, party faithful will look back and ask: “Who led us down this path?”

And a small voice will answer from Effutu:
“It was I, your beloved Minority Leader, armed with my fertile Ewe mind and a very loud silence.”

Final thoughts

Is Afenyo-Markin sincere in his effort? Perhaps. Is he being used? Likely. Is he sabotaging the NPP from within using tactics so subtle they look like strategy? That is for history to decide.

But one thing is clear: the NPP's ethnic contradictions have never looked more poetic than under the stewardship of a man whose very presence in the leadership circle is both a symbol of progress and the party’s political paradox.

As a fertile Ewe mind myself, I can confidently say I understand the workings of Afenyo-Markin’s fertile Ewe mind. We think in diagonals while others walk in straight lines. What may look like confusion to some is simply choreographed complexity. And in that complexity, lies the true art of rebuilding without rebuilding.

Long live the fertile Ewe mind. Long live the walkouts.

Let the rebuilding continue.
Dr Moses Deyegbe Kuvoame is an Associate Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway. He is also a member of the NDC Nordic Chapter Policy Team.