For Credible and Fair Presidential Primary, Let Every Registered NPP Member Vote

Kennedy Ohene Agyapong and Dr. Yaw Osei-Adutwum

I have already extensively discussed the imperative necessity of having each and every legitimately registered dues-paying member of the country’s main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) vote in the party’s upcoming 2028 Presidential-Election Primary, which is scheduled for Saturday, January 31, 2026, if the credibility of the conduct of the election is to be guaranteed and the high possibility of the party breaking up well before the December 7, 2028 General Election is to wisely and constructively averted (See “NPP Race: Ken Agyapong Team Raises Alarm Over Possible Disenfranchisement of Party Delegates” Modernghana.com 10/2/25).

Indeed, it ought to be clear to all by now that the Delegate System, in which a relatively handful of party stalwarts and executives constituted themselves, undemocratically, into Party Kingmakers, is decidedly effete and insufferably obsolete. In a civilized constitutional democracy, such as the overwhelming majority of Ghanaians have been aiming for, for about 32 years now, this sort of the mischievously and strategically stage-managed denial of the full-mandate of the people is unwarranted and dangerously akin to the sort of treasonous ballot-snatching and wanton destruction engaged in by the leadership of the then main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) during the 2024 Presidential Election is absolutely untenable.

We have already discussed this subject in a previous article and will therefore not waste any more time rehashing the same here again. Except, of course, for the fact that the Presidential Aspirant of the New Patriotic Party whose team of electioneering-campaign operatives have their strategic antenna smack on target. Nevertheless, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind, whatsoever, that Candidate Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, the former Member of Parliament for both Assin-North and Assin-Central Constituencies, in the Central Region, has not even the proverbial Chinaman’s Chance of winning the January 31, 2026 New Patriotic Party’s 2028 Presidential-Primary Election.

More so because it was the Vote-Buying Delegate System that enabled Candidate Ohene Agyapong to clinch as relatively high percentage of the 2024 Presidential-Primary Election as the notorious blowhard proprietor of the Oman Media Communications Network did the first and the last time around. Indeed, as Yours Truly vividly recalls, Candidate Agyapong grossly and crassly insulted the intelligence of party delegates by transporting dozens of articulated trucks full of rice and beans and other food items all across the length and the breadth of the country, as a surefire means of buying the votes of party delegates and, with the latter, the conscience of these voters as well.

And to be shamefully certain, Candidate Agyapong managed to buy both the votes and the conscience/consciences of approximately a third of the delegates. Which ought to soberly tell any critically thinking and progressive Ghanaian citizen on the official corruption-eradication front that, as a country, we have a long way to go. And on the latter score, of course, we are not making any partisan differentiation here. You see, the leadership of the Mahama and the Johnson “The Mosquito” Asiedu-Nketia-cannibalized National Democratic Congress constitutes the quintessence of blatant and shameless official corruption - and the record is readily available and accessible to all civically responsible Ghanaian citizens who care to acquaint themselves with the same - while, for its part, the leadership of the presently main opposition New Patriotic Party prefers to self-righteously gloat about and over the patent falsehood of being “Purse-Protecting” statesmen and women, when the truth and the reality of the matter is that the NPP leadership is unspeakably more corrupt and rankly kleptocratic than their faux-socialist political and ideological opponents.

Now, as we have already discussed quite extensively in a previous column, the one great advantage of having each and every party-card carrying and dues-paying member of the New Patriotic Party cast their ballot in the upcoming 2028 Presidential-Election Primary is the Zero Necessity of Voters having to travel long distances that requires being offered thinly veiled bribe monies disguised as Transportation Fares and Allowances by candidates with deep pockets and almost absolutely no remarkable talent, vision or the capacity to handle the cranially taxing and complex concatenation of the affairs of a medium-sized country and a major player on both the African Continent and the international community at large, like Our Much-Beloved Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana.

As well, having each and every party-card carrying member of the New Patriotic Party express their inalienable mandate in the party’s Presidential Primary would also give us a better picture and a more accurate sense of the viability, as well as the electoral formidability and, to be certain, the electability of the candidate so credibly selected or elected. And on the latter count must also be remembered that having all registered and dues-paying members of the party duly exercise their franchise at the Presidential-Primary Level would be solidly tantamount to having realistically achieved at least half of the work required to win the 2028 General Election, since the party’s strategists would then have already completely figured out how to battle it out with the presently ruling National Democratic Congress for the support and the mandate of the other half of the electorate.

Personally, as I have stated many more times than I can count, my good money or bottom-dollar is smack behind Candidate Yaw Osei-Adutwum, the former Minister of Education, and a man who has done more to significantly revolutionize and improve the quality of Ghana’s public education system over the past half-century than any of his predecessors, including the now-Vice-President Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang, and is likely to have his foot- and fingerprints etched on the country’s public education system and resonate for at least another generation or two.

We also know the apocalyptic havoc that the morally and the strategically regressive Delegate System could, once again, wreak on the fortunes of the New Patriotic Party heading into the 2028 General Election, in particular the 2028 Presidential Election, as witnessed with horror in the 2024 Presidential Election and very well before the latter watershed event, when an insignificant few vision-bereft and chuckleheaded party bosses went behind closed door and scandalously and noetically decided for the overwhelming majority of the rank-and-file membership of the party, the choice of the 2024 Presidential Running-Mate of then Vice-President and Candidate Mahamudu Bawumia. WE SAY NEVER AGAIN!!!

Now, as the jaded and nauseatingly trite maxim goes: “Once Bitten, Twice Shy.” In short, it is crystal clear, and I have said this before that those Echo-Chamber addicted party kingpins who literally ran the New Patriotic Party decidedly and effectively aground in the 2024 General Election, appear to be impenitently hellbent on repeating the same ill-fated and strategically obtuse gameplan once again. As my maternal grandfather, The Rev. Theodore Henry (Yawbe) Sintim(-Aboagye) - (1896-1982) - was fond of saying: “You Reap What You Sow” or, better yet, “It Is Like Yourself.” In the original Akan-Twi version, it runs as follows: “Ese Wo Ara.” A word to the wise….

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
E-mail: [email protected]