The rise of Kojo Bamba and 'Akrakyefuor Mienu'

The election of Kwadwo Fosu Boadu, alias Kojo Bamba, as First Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) last Saturday should not have shocked anyone who has watched Ghana's Fourth Republic closely. Yet it did.

Not because he picked forms, was vetted, and was cleared to contest. Not because he campaigned like every other aspirant. It shocked because he won and won decisively against twelve others who, on paper and by academic credentials and political history, were far more qualified.

He won against the likes of Nana Akomea, Mustapha Hamid, Richard Ahiagbah, Samuel Pyne, and Henry Nana Boakye the very man to whom Bamba was once a subordinate.

How did he win? Bamba offered something different: a relatable message and the promise of protection. His campaign tagline, _"akrakyefuor mmienu, macho man baako"_ — to wit, vote two educated candidates and one strongman, worked.

In the final analysis, 3,116 NPP delegates decided that the best man to be number two in the party that prides itself as an elitist party of property-owning democrats and rule of law is a man whose political biography cannot be told without the words Delta Force, court intrusion, and conviction.

However, to reduce Kojo Bamba's story to only Delta Force, would be to do a great disservice to the man and to miss the very lesson his election is teaching Ghanaian politicians.

Last Saturday was not about one man. It is about what his victory says of the people and systems within our political parties.

One would have thought that after the 2017 incidents that wrote him off as a spent force and a political liability, the NPP would have quietly discarded him, as politicians usually do with people they have "used."

Rather, the party did not discard him. It enabled and encouraged Bamba to metamorphose into what he is today. His was a remarkable political apprenticeship. He combined street mobilization with learning protocol, organization, and administration. Perhaps what is missing is diplomacy, a touch of finesse and beautiful grammar that covers for many "polished politicians".

Along the line, he was appointed Deputy National Director of Operations in the NPP's Youth Wing and worked directly under Henry Nana Boakye; the same man he defeated on Saturday, October 3, 2026 by 3,116 votes to 3,061.

Those who worked with him describe a man obsessed with constituency work. He kept the database he gathered close to his chest. That base later became his dependable electoral college that propelled him to the top.

Bamba won with a message that was simple, almost mundane and disarmingly spectacular in the eyes of his party's base. He constantly reminded constituency executives that they are the frontline soldiers who work to attain power and must never accept being sidelined when power is won.

Bamba's win is not an accident. It is a subtle revolt of the base against the suit-and-tie elite who have been in charge forever. It was a wake up call for the "akrakyefuor".

His win also presents an uncomfortable mirror: his opposite number in the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Chief Sofo Azorka, whose name is also synonymous with another vigilante group known as the Azorka Boys, is fully active.

Bamba's critics, especially from the NDC, have been quick to call his election a legitimization of political violence by the NPP. They point to 2017 and ask how a party that condemned the Azorka Boys could now elect its own Delta Force leader? Their criticism itself reveals what is fast becoming the new normal. That is, two sides of the same coin, minted in the same furnace of political violence for a wishful electoral victory.

In effect, both major political parties in Ghana have now decided that their First Vice Chairmanship position, which is constitutionally expected to be that of a unifier, a disciplinarian, and a backup chairman, is now best occupied by men who can command the streets show them something small like what happened at Atewa years ago.

The NPP in opposition rightly condemned the Azorka Boys. The NDC in opposition rightly condemned Delta Force. Today, both parties have elevated their respective "boys" to First Vice Chairman.

This is not equivalence. It is a convergence of "takashi" and a confirmation that we have moved from condemning political violence to rewarding it with executive power. When the NDC elected Azorka, the NPP called it proof that the NDC was violent. The NPP has now elected Kojo Bamba, and it chooses to call it grassroots empowerment. Both assertions cannot be true if we are to be honest.

Let us be blunt, because hiding behind euphemisms is dangerous in this context. What is happening is tantamount to normalizing a forbidden doctrine: that if you can command men who can disrupt a court, beat up opponents, cause mayhem, or protect a ballot box with force, you are electable.

Could this be the tacit admission that in Ghana's current political warfare, the fear of losing at the collation centre is stronger than the fear of being called violent?

Be that as it may, Bamba's election poses two tests:

First, for the man himself: will he remain Kojo Bamba the grassroots mobilizer, or will he mature into Kwadwo Fosu Boadu the statesman?

It is trite knowledge that the First Vice Chair does not lead vigilantes. He chairs meetings in the absence of the Chairman, mediates regional disputes, and speaks for the party on national platforms.

The second test is for the NPP ahead of 2028. By electing Bamba over more polished candidates, delegates have sent a clear signal to flagbearer Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia that they want a party that is present, accessible, protective, and firm on the ground. Whether that helps the NPP shed its elitist tag and reconnect with the youth, or reinforces the perception of intolerance that hurt it in 2024, will depend entirely on what Bamba and his supporters do with this mandate until 7th December, 2028.

Of course, history is littered with men who started with stones and ended with laurels. Whether Kwadwo Bamba will be one of them will be written not at the Baba Yara Stadium where he was elected, but in the next two years of his conduct.

That should worry both the NPP and NDC elite more than it worries the community of neutrals.

The most alarming takeaway from last Saturday is the dangerous logic that a political party needs heavily built men to police elections. That is a direct slap in the face of the sponsors of the Vigilantism and Related Offences Act. It also questions the capability of the police and other security services clothed with the power to police elections.

At any given moment, the President of the day is the Commander in Chief with the military and police at his beck and call. If he couldn't do it, what would make anybody think that Bamba or Azorka can do it?

Both the NDC and NPP must internalize the belief that the 2028 election will be won on policy, results, as well as bread-and-butter issues, not on strongmen at polling stations and collation centres.

At face value, Kojo Bamba and Azorka may seem like the problem, but they are not. They are only symptoms. The real problem is a political system that endorses its own vigilante group while condemning that of its opponents and pushes them to the pinnacle of the party, while lecturing young people about the rule of law.

So, Kojo Bamba now has two choices. He can remain Kojo Bamba, the Delta Force commander who commands fear, or he can become Kwadwo Fosu Boadu, a National Vice Chairman who commands respect. The first role requires fists and weapons. The second requires restraint, diplomacy, and the ability to guide and lead in a democratic society.

The NPP, too, has a choice. It can celebrate Saturday as a victory for grassroots inclusion, or it can ask itself a harder question: if our First Vice Chairman's most marketable skill is that he can protect ballot boxes by force, what does that say about our faith in Ghana's electoral system?

Bamba's life is a whole chapter on grassroots relations in a political textbook Ghana is currently authoring. Hopefully, it will be co-edited by the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) and other civil society organizations and published by the Electoral Commission.

By now, Bamba must have realised the burden placed upon his shoulder and what it entails. If has not, then he must do so quickly. The job of a First Vice Chairman is not about fists, weapons, and violence. It requires wisdom, not thuggery.

It is about providing vision and direction for a party in opposition seeking to regain power. It is about ably assisting the National Chairman and readying himself to carry the burden when the Chairman is absent. He needs all the support he can get, devoid of "akrakyefuor" bullying.

It will therefore be hypocritical of the NPP akrakyefuor to say they are ashamed of a man from their own base. Bamba is not a liability. He is someone the grassroots can relate to as a man who has risen to the top from among them.

The NPP delegates who gathered at the Baba Yara Stadium on Saturday did not see a vigilante leader on the ballot. They saw and elected a grassroots warrior who has been convicted, mocked, and sidelined but never left the party.

Yes, the wailing has been loud since Saturday. The so-called political class is shocked. Their tongues are wagging, but for what reason? Bamba's election should not come as a shocker. He was rewarded for loyalty. And, no matter how blind his loyalty is, all that can be said is "macho man agye loyalty aketua" — to wit, the macho man has earned his loyalty dues.

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