After it all, when the final names were collated and announced, at the end of the 2022 National Executive Elections of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the ten gallant men and women, who the delegates freely deemed as capable of running affairs of the Party, were Steve Ntimas as National Chairman and Danquah Smith Buttey, Rita Asobayire and Alhaji Masawuud as 1st, 2nd and 3rdNational Vice Chairpersons respectively. Others were Justin Frimpong Kodua (JFK) as the General Secretary, Dr. Charles Dwamena as National Treasurer and Henry Nana Boakye as National Organizer. The rest were Kate Gyamfua as National Women Organizer, Salam Mohammed Mustapha as National Youth Organizer and Abdul Aziz Haruna Futtah as National Nasara Co-ordinator.
Seven of the previous executives contested again out of which four were successful in the positions they contested for. Rita Asobayire, Henry Nana Boakye, Kate Gyamfua and Abdul Haruna Futtah won in the positions they contested. Three others who lost were George Kwabena Abankwa Yeboah who moved up from National Treasurer to the National Chairman slot; Michael Oware Wadie who contested again as 1st National Vice Chairman and John Boadu who contested for re-election as General Secretary.
With four old guards on board and six fresh legs, of which one is a veteran, it looks like the right team has been selected to give a new-look to the New Patriotic Party and all that the Party members in particular and Ghanaians in general are expecting, is for the NPP to become attractive to Ghanaians again. Especially under the new leadership of Steve Ntim as National Chairman and Justin Frimpong Kodua as General Secretary.
My humble advice to these gallant ladies and gentlemen is that, it should not be business as usual as happened during the past two administrations where power seemed to have been in the possession of a few people and what they said was to be accepted and done.
Already, General Secretary Justin Frimpong Kodua has sounded warning that the Party laws will deal with Party officers who openly declare and support aspirants in the flag bearer race and the parliamentary primaries. He was strong on the fact that no one should use his or her position to campaign for aspirants of their choice, since that would bring division. Whoever is chosen by the Party, will be supported by the Party, he added, citing the 2008 General Elections, where due to serious interference in parliamentary primaries a lot of NPP members ran on independent tickets. In the end, the four independent MPs in the fifth Parliament were from the NPP stock.
Since that era, some powers-that-be would descend on constituencies and impose candidates on them. In 2020, the NPP went from 169 seats to 137 with a very slim and uncomfortable majority after the same party, that caused the sacking of Hon Edward Asiamah of Fomena from the seventh Parliament, had to eat humble pie and go down on its knees to beg him to be on the side of the NPP in this eighth Parliament.
There were instances where some parliamentary candidates were even campaigned against by the constituency, regional and national executives to make sure they lost in the elections. Some members of the Party who walked in the corridors of power would also pump in lots of money to make the Party’s candidate lose, so that they would have advantage of putting up their candidature in the next elections.
Finally, in some instances, some regional chairmen could declare some seats as losing seats and will pay little attention to NPP’s own candidates there. It is even rumoured that bags of money could exchange hands from the other parties to make sure these NPP executives effectively make their party lose majority in some regions.
In this new era, such executives must be smoked out and dealt with severely.
In order to drastically cut down on instances of members running independent, investigations must be conducted to find out what actually happened for someone to be aggrieved enough to choose to desert the Party. If the fault is from any executive member, they must be dealt with, and the aggrieved member should be welcomed back whenever he or she shows up again.
If, however, the deserting member had no case, whenever he or she wants to come back, they will be treated in accordance with Party rules.
Funding of Party activities, is very essential and here I will suggest that since this new executive committee look set to restore the Party to its original days, as it was during the eras of Peter Ala Adjetey, B.J. da Rocha, Agyenim Boateng, Odoi Sykes and Dan Botwe, party members must endeavour to support the National Executive Committee (NEC) by consistently paying monthly dues and/or making regular donations to help the Party.
Having stated the above, the NPP is a pro-capitalist party and should certainly be business oriented. With businessman Steve Ntimat the head of affairs, it will not be out of place to set up businesses and industries which will belong to or be part owned by the Party and employ only party members.
Once party members are in some form of employment in Party establishments, businesses and industries, a minute percentage of their salaries should be deducted and paid into the Party’s coffers. Such monies which would be used to address the Party’s financial needs, must be fully accounted for in a very transparent manner.
Moneycracy must be either completely eradicated or reduced drastically in the NPP. It is so embarrassing to witness the NPP doing what it accused the NDC of doing, buying votes in order to win the elections.
This National Delegates Conference has at least proven one thing, that money cannot always bring about solutions. For if the delegates had bowed down to money, many of these newly elected executives would have lost the elections. As it is, the biggest spender is said to have become the biggest loser.
Another task, I will request this new administration to tackle is ethnicity within the Party. All NPP members must be conscientised about the need to accept members of other ethnic groups as siblings and relate with them as such. This is very important because for the Party to hold as one and be truly united, tribalism should never be tolerated or encouraged.
There should be neither Akan nor Ewe, neither Ga nor Mole-Dagbon, nor should there be Guan or Dagomba, Dangbe or Kusasi, for all members of NPP should be one in the one body of the UP Tradition. (Paraphrasing Galatians 3:28).
Dispute resolution should be dealt with in dispatch and very fairly. Irrespective of who and who are involved, punitive measures in accordance with the Party rules, must be meted out to the guilty.
Professionalism must be the hallmark of all activities in the Party with time consciousness. To show that the Party is a party of serious-minded people, events must start and end at the times stated on the programmes.
When activities like internal elections are to take place, it must be of great essence, so that everything that is necessary for the activity to go on without any hitch, must be put in place. For example, and most importantly, the Party album, must be exhibited to all candidates, delegates and party members, to vet and be sure that it represents the true list of delegates, without exception.
There should never be any occasion where some delegates would be disqualified by way of injunction on the eve of the event, like it happened to the Tescons during the Ashanti regional and the national executive elections.
Also, whenever objections are raised after declaration of results, re-counting should be done immediately, without any delay that will raise eyebrows about the authenticity of the elections like it happened in the Akwatia NPP Parliamentary Primaries in June, 2020.
The then incumbent MP, Mercy Adu-Gyamfi (Ama Sey) lost by four votes of which she claimed four deceased party members had their votes taken. Instead of the organisers agreeing to recount the ballots and investigate her allegations, she was snubbed. NPP went on to lose that seat. This should never happen again.
In all things the new executive committee should be affable and exhibit great humility in all things they do. Pride and arrogance do not make leaders and such people get rewarded the hard way by the very people they look down upon.
Power must be used positively for the good of all. My final advise to the New NPP National Executives in particular and all NPP members in positions in the Party and government, in general is this: To enjoy power throughout the rest of your life, use it to serve people and be humble at all times. When that position is taken from you, people with still celebrate you and will always be at your feet.
Hon. Daniel Dugan
