George Andah congratulates Dr. Essibu and Percy Dennis as NPP Central Region elects new leaders

Former Member of Parliament for Awutu Senya West and former Deputy Minister for Communications, Nenyi George Kojo Andah, has congratulated Dr Joseph Kobina Essibu on his election as Central Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party, while paying tribute to outgoing acting chairman Percy Dennis for holding the region together through a difficult period.

Dr Essibu polled 278 votes to defeat Mr Dennis, who obtained 161, in regional executive elections held on Saturday, 15 August 2026. The polls were conducted across 15 regions as part of the party's reorganisation ahead of the 2028 general election, with Western North voting on Sunday.

Nenyi Andah said the outcome carried particular meaning in Awutu Senya West, where the new chairman was born and where he retains close ties, including as Board Chair of Senya Senior High School.

"Dr Essibu is a son of Awutu Senya West. He chairs the board of Senya Senior High School; he has invested his own resources in this party since before 2016, and he has done it without asking to be seen," he said. "The Central Region has chosen well, and our constituency has every reason to be proud this morning."

Dr Essibu, an educationist and founder of Ideal College, is a former Central Regional Treasurer of the party and Board Chairman of Cocoa Marketing Company Ghana.

The former legislator drew particular attention to the new chairman's earlier attempt at the position. Dr Essibu contested the same chairmanship in 2022 and lost to the late Robert Kutin Jnr by 273 votes to 195.

"Dr Essibu is the answer to everyone who says a defeated candidate has no future in this party. He lost in 2022. He did not sulk, he did not go quiet, and he did not go anywhere else," Nenyi Andah said. "He kept working, and four years later the delegates handed him the region. That is the lesson I want every candidate who lost on Saturday to take home."

He reserved warm words for Mr Dennis, who assumed the chairmanship following the death of Chairman Kutin in December 2024, weeks after the party's defeat in the general election.

"Percy Dennis inherited that seat in the worst circumstances any party officer could imagine. We had just lost a general election, and then we buried our chairman," he said. "He held the region steady when it would have been easy to let it drift, and he then submitted himself to the delegates rather than cling to the office. The party owes him a debt, and I hope the region says so plainly."

Nenyi Andah commended delegates, candidates and election officials across the country for the orderly conduct of the polls, describing it as evidence that the grassroots remain serious about rebuilding.

He urged the new regional executive to move quickly on reconciliation rather than allow contest wounds to settle, calling for a formal meeting with all unsuccessful candidates within thirty days, and for those candidates to be given named roles in the region's mobilisation and campaign structures.

"An election should not create permanent winners and losers. The real winner must be the party," he stressed.

The Central Region, he noted, remains strategically important to the party's national prospects and requires a disciplined and inclusive organisation capable of reconnecting with voters lost in 2024. Awutu Senya West, which the party lost in 2020, would be among the seats watching the new leadership closely.

He therefore urged the NPP family to heal, unite and rebuild, adding that the party's ability to regain public confidence will depend far more on how members work together after the contests than on how they campaigned during them.

Nenyi George Kojo Andah represented Awutu Senya West in Parliament from 2017 to 2021 and served as Deputy Minister for Communications. He previously held senior marketing and corporate communications roles in the telecommunications and fast-moving consumer goods sectors. He serves the Senya Beraku Traditional Area as Akyempim Odefey under the stool name Nenyi Kobena Andakwei VI.