Oftentimes, when people lose something they least expected to, they tend to blame everybody and everything around them, but themselves.
This phenomenon stems from the delusion that precedes the great fall of the vanquished. The belief that he or she was on the right path despite all the warning signals, largely accounts for this.
Politicians are no different in this kind of thinking. Humiliating defeat and huge loss of time, energy and money post election, hits differently. They suddenly remember the sleepless nights, political stunts, and staged antics. That is where the blame game begins and everyone is at fault, except themselves.
You would even hear them outsource the failure to the managers of the polls. They would say “we didn’t lose, they cheated us”. That stage of denial is equivalent to a crises of accountability where the scape hunt begins.
On rare occasions, some politicians have reluctantly accepted their failings, after deeply pondering over what might have gone wrong during the process. Some admit that they were just not fit for the role. Others admit that they over estimated themselves. Some also admit that they followed the bandwagon and failed to see the red flags.
Eventually, they find the mirror that tells them who or what they really are when it is too late.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) went through a similar situation in 2016, which necessitated the formation of the Prof. Kwesi Botchwey committee. President John Mahama lost the elections with the biggest gap of about a million votes at the time. Neither he nor the NDC saw that coming. He had hoped to return to power in 2020, but it appeared the party still hadn’t learnt the full lesson. Their prayer was answered in 2024 when the people saw a change.
In the case of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). The gap was so big that it currently tops the charts of electoral defeats in Ghana with over a million votes. They too didn’t see that coming. We’ll, maybe they did, but they decided to still forge forward. That also birthed the Prof. Mike Oquaye committee.
Yet, even before the 2024 elections, the 2020 elections which the NPP won gave a strong signal. 169 seats had been reduced to 137 seats and about a million votes had been halved. Those signals were ignored and the pattern of governance did not change. Then, old tapes of then running mate Bawumia in 2015/2016 and others who had positions in government re-emerged. What cues were taken from them? Those tapes are still there, new ones have come up and the reality is that, they cannot be wished away.
Post 2024, it emerged that perhaps, the verdict had always internal after all. All the 10 flagbearer aspirants including Dr. Bawumia, mounted campaign platforms in 2023, to tell their own party and the world the truth on national television in turns. The cardinal message that they all carried was that things had not been done right and they were going to do things differently. They wanted change.
These included cabinet ministers and the Vice President of the Akufo Addo regime. They spoke, but the party didn’t listen. They did the party a favour by diagnosing the problem and prescribing the right medication but the party leadership refused to take it.
They repeated with ease and gusto, things that had been publicly ridiculed, flatly dismissed and sharply denied because they had been said by Journalists and dissenting voices who had been tagged as enemies. Now, here we were, with different messengers carrying the same truth that was once frowned upon. It presented a tough situation of either humbly apologizing or staying arrogant. The party chose and the electorates decided.
History reminds us that in year 2007 when the NPP was rife for a new flagbearer, 17 candidates including cabinet ministers and the Vice President of the Kuffuor regime; Alhaji Aliu Mahama, stepped up to say they wanted to continue the legacy of President Kuffuor.
In simple terms, 17 persons of the same party wanted to continue a legacy then and, now 10 persons of the same party, want to change how things had been done. Is that what you folks call a vote of confidence versus a vote of no confidence? Well, as it were, Dr. Bawumia won the primaries amidst the threats of a showdown from Kennedy Agyapong. That was a crack among many. Instead of fixing that crack and fixing it well, the party jumped into campaign mode dancing to King Paluta’s hit song ‘sisi fia’.
Of course, there was an election to win in 2024, so the party had to hurriedly assemble all the aspirants to pledge support and to join the campaign trail. On the face value it looked real, but the electorates saw through the cosmetics.
While the NPP may be busily looking around to locate necks upon which to hang the garlands of electoral shame, they ought to recognize that the Ghanaian voter has become more sophisticated than before and can read between the lines.
If even with the benefit of power and influence, that strategy against targeted persons collapsed, what would make it stand now? Would it not be smarter to try and apologize to the masses after purging the party of the rot that occasioned the loss, rather than to attempting to incense the masses with a holier than thou posture?
For the records, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia is the NPP’s flagbearer today, but how he quickly abandoned his “Economic Wizkid appellation to nod to “Mr. Digital” when the economy was in tatters is still fresh in Ghanaian minds.
Kennedy Ohene Agyapong may not have broken away yet, but the unsettling news about he being associated with a new political movement known as the BASE could give the NPP a rude showdown.
Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen broke away from the NPP to form the United Party and left with a sizeable chunk of his constituency and some fine communicators like Solomon Owusu, Ebo Buckman and Lawyer Appiah Danquah.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto may have been quiet, but will he willingly jump onto a campaign trail for 2028 and what exactly will he bring to the table?
Ing. Kwabena Agyei Agyepong may be playing a key role around the Bawumia campaign, but his message of reminding us that the very people who landed us in a ditch, cannot be trusted to take us out of it, coupled with the call to return to core values, discipline, service and fairness cannot be ignored.
Boakye Kyeremateng Agyarko hopes to become national chairman of the NPP, and it is instructive to note that key members of the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia led government are supporting him against a supposed regime candidate, John Boadu.
Will Ing. Francis Addai-Nimoh regain steam for a Bawumia campaign after bowing out of the flagbearer race because of expensive filing fees which the party found nothing wrong with?
What about Joe Ghartey, Kofi Konadu and so on?
The elections in 2028 will be about issues. It will be about what was promised versus what has been delivered or is being delivered. It will be about the economy, the exchange rate, GDP, inflation, cost of living, security, jobs, infrastructure, debt stock, etc. Vile propaganda will have very little space to operate. Frivolous messages such as “the table will turn”, “the future is pregnant”, “how did we get here” will not take precedence over the issues.
Nobody deceives electorates to vote against a sitting government. It is the arrogance of power and the refusal to listen that leads the government into defeat.
People are still bearing the scars of the banking sector clean up (or collapse), haircuts from the domestic debt exchange programme (DDEP), exchange rate fluctuations that hit their businesses so hard, uncompleted projects that were commissioned days before general elections, etc.
This is not the time to target people and send social media hirelings to attack them. This is not the time to manufacture scandals. The people, especially the Gen Z’s are wide awake. They have unlimited access to the internet, research tools and artificial intelligence platforms to fact-check claims on the go. They may have benefitted from President Akufo Addo’s free SHS or even President Kuffuor’s free maternal health care policy, but they certainly are not dumb.
Free advise: this is the time to sit and think through alternative policy solutions to what the government of the day is doing. This is the time to figure out ways of not going to beg the IMF for support after calling people Sanballat and Tobiah in a Joshua and Caleb economy. This is the time to encourage Ken Ofori-Atta to come home and account for his stewardship so that the negative around him that affects the NPP badly can be cleansed.
This is the time to reassure the people that the days of having over a hundred ministers will be a thing of the past. This is the time to assure the people that reshuffle will be normalized and that non-performing appointees will be shown the exit, whether they are in-laws to the leader or not.
This is the time to let the people know that portions of forest reserves will not be found, willed forever for relatives, in the will and testament of the very people trusted to keep those reserves safe. This is the time to assure the people that Cabinet decisions will not be undermined by individual Cabinet ministers to spite the government.
This is the time to assure the people that critical reports like the Prof. Frimpong Boateng report will not be shelved for two years. This is the time to assure people that your party rose to fame through demonstrations and will not criminalize demonstrations by arresting and prosecuting demonstrators or even preventing them to demonstrate at all by blocking roads.
As October 3, 2026 draws nigh for the NPP to elect its national officers, party delegates must decide if they want to take the same soldiers and General to a much tougher war than what they lost earlier Or, if they want a change like the 9 out of the 10 flagbearer hopefuls who never got the nod.
I sincerely hope they find the mirror that ultimately reveals the truth in the voting booth, come election day.
By Johnnie Hughes
