Efforts to Undermine NAPO in the Ashanti Region Will Fail

At a time when the rank and file of the NPP are grappling with the pain of the party’s biggest electoral defeat, and with a committee set up to investigate the factors behind this loss, it is disheartening that some elements within the party are more focused on tarnishing the image of the NPP Running Mate for the 2024 elections, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, also known as NAPO.

Their strategy is straightforward: give the dog (NAPO) a bad name to justify hanging it. These detractors believe that discrediting NAPO, especially in the Ashanti Region the party’s stronghold will serve their political motives.

This sinister agenda is being driven by two Members of Parliament; one male from the Eastern Region and the other, female from the Ashanti Region. They allege that NAPO is solely responsible for the NPP’s poor performance in the just-ended elections, using the Ashanti Region as their basis. This claim is not only absurd but also laughable. By the numbers, the Ashanti Region delivered the largest number of votes for the NPP in 2024: 1,366,823. While this is a drop from the 2020 figure of 1,795,824 a difference of 429,001 votes, it raises critical questions. Any well-meaning NPP member should be concerned as to why these voters who ordinarily would have voted for the NPP stayed away from the polls, rather than unfairly pinning the blame on one individual.

If NAPO is to be blamed for our defeat, then by that logic it must also be acknowledged that, despite any alleged shortcomings, he secured the highest number of votes for the NPP because according to these detractors, he was supposed to deliver Ashanti Region.

Indeed, he delivered, judging from the NPP’s overall national average. In fact, according to a recent data released, votes of first-time voters were won by Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia with 51.6% as against John Mahama’s 39.3% and it was Ashanti that helped to deliver first time voters for DMB.

Does it make sense to attribute the party’s defeat, including its poor performance in the parliamentary elections, to NAPO alone? The logic defies reason and smacks of a shallow understanding of political dynamics.

In the coming days, these malicious, vile, unconscionable predators led by the Eastern Region MP, whose obsession is controlling the party in that region and beyond, and the female Ashanti MP, have enlisted a known political prostitute and an opportunist named Ababio Kumi aka Adentan Kumi to spearhead a smear campaign against NAPO.

He has been asked to do this by forming teams to tour every nook and cranny of the region to poison the minds of party stakeholders ahead of the visits by the NPP committee to unravel the causes of the NPP defeat.

Kumi and his team per their dastardly stratagem, are expected to conscientize the party grassroot and induce them to say “NAPO is the cause of the NPP’s dropped performance in the Ashanti Region”. What makes this smear campaign even more ludicrous is Kumi’s own track record. He is on record to have repeatedly denigrated the NPP’s 2024 Flagbearer, calling him an incompetent manager of the economy and openly supporting Alan Kyerematen’s “Movement for Change.” His political volte face has rendered him irrelevant, and his involvement in this character assassination attempt is clearly, to revive his dead political prospects within the NPP. It is said that the message is only as good as the messenger!

The NPP’s defeat in 2024 was a collective one and we all have to own it. We should stop the needless blame games. It is imperative that we focus on collective and dispassionate solutions rather than engaging in baseless attacks on individuals. NAPO’s name should be made to rest.
Ashanti Region Must be on the lookout! The Nonsense must stop!

*Nana Appiah Ohemeng
NPP Member, Akrofuom Constituency, Ashanti Region*