Afoko: NPP must unite or face further decline

A former helmsman of the New Patriotic Party has re-entered the political arena with a singular obsession: wresting control of government from the opposition and positioning his preferred candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, in the nation’s top office.

Awentami Paul Afoko, who is seeking to reclaim the party chairmanship, took his message directly to NPP members across three regions — Volta, Oti and Central — spelling out why he abandoned retirement and what he believes the party must do to reverse a precipitous decline in electoral fortunes.

“I didn’t leave my retirement to come in for any reason other than power. Power is all we want, so that we can use power to develop our country according to the way we see it,” Afoko told gatherings of party supporters.

His pitch rests on a conviction that the NPP’s governing philosophy represents Ghana’s surest path toward development. But before the party can offer anything to the nation, he argued, it must first put its own house in order — healing the wounds of internal fracture that have hollowed out public confidence.

The numbers paint a sobering picture. The party that once commanded 169 parliamentary seats now occupies just 87 — a collapse that Afoko said should alarm everyone, particularly the senior figures who nursed the party through its formative decades.

“If we sit back, especially you the elders, and watch it, the party that you have toiled for from your youth is on a downward trajectory,” he said, his tone mixing disappointment with urgency.

He directed his most pointed criticism at party leadership, warning that the trajectory cannot be ignored or normalised. Without immediate and decisive action, he suggested, the NPP risks becoming a permanent opposition force.

“We are now at 87 from 169. We all must stand up and say this party must turn the corner and rise again,” Afoko urged.

Afoko’s path back to power hinges on what he terms his “3Rs” — a three-phase strategy meant to reset the party’s trajectory. The first R is Reunite: bringing fractured factions back into a single cohesive family and reabsorbing those who have grown disillusioned or estranged from the organisation.

The second R is Rebuild: reconstructing the party’s organisational muscle from the ground level upward, ensuring that grassroots structures at the polling station level are fortified and empowered to mobilise voters.

The final R is Recapture: leveraging the reunited and rebuilt party to wrest control of the government from its current custodians.

Throughout his campaign trail across the three regions, Afoko pressed the case for unity as the prerequisite for revival. Without it, he suggested, even the most talented leadership and best policy ideas would wither.

Yaw Opoku Amoako

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