The writer
Loyalty to a party is not measured by the number of years on a membership card. It is measured by what you did for the party in its finest hours and what you refused to do to it in its darkest ones.
Supporting the New Patriotic Party (NPP), a party whose history spans decades and whose roots run deep into the Danquah-Dombo-Busia tradition, is not for the faint-hearted.
Every leader who has sought to carry this party’s standard has faced challenges that appeared, at the time, almost insurmountable. What is striking is not just that they overcame. It is what they overcame from within.
Former President Kufuor’s earliest battles were not fought against the National Democratic Congress (NDC). They were fought inside our own walls. The early NPP was dominated by figures rooted in entrenched factions and personal networks that pre-dated the formal party itself.
Former President Kufuor had to convince kingmakers who were not initially sold on him as the natural heir to the tradition. He faced deep-seated entitlement from an old order that had decided, without consulting the people, who deserved to lead.
He contended with a base still nursing raw wounds from the Rawlings era, wounds that for many, a lifetime may never fully wash away. He contested twice, absorbed the resistance, and then he led this party to a sweet, hard-earned victory.
As fate would have it, we went into opposition in 2008 and true to form, a gauntlet of accusations was laid at the former President’s feet.
In those days before social media consumed everything, you followed political developments through The Chronicle and The Daily Guide.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
The debates were loud and sometimes ugly. But eventually, those who believed in the party and its vision put their shoulders to the wheel and went back to work.
The next chapter belonged to former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, and dare I say, his trials were ten times what ex-President Kufuor endured. Having contested and lost in the 1998 primaries, he carried into every subsequent campaign the resentment of a faction that never forgave him for ultimately winning.
He faced seventeen colleagues who had stood with him in the trenches and yet rose to contest his candidature. Forces from the old order and an organised attempt to build a new one worked hard against him. He won anyway. And as fate would have it, he became President of the Republic of Ghana.
Today, our Flagbearer Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, had to earn support from an old order while simultaneously fending off the ambitions of a new one.
His fight felt familiar, though I would argue it was twice as hard. What is undeniable is what he brought to our party and to Ghanaian political discourse.
Debates shifted. Policy arguments became rooted in data and intellectual rigour rather than the acerbic point-scoring our opponents had made their signature. He has carried himself with dignity throughout and has continued to do so with quiet resolve in the aftermath of our 2024 loss.
As we rallied behind former Presidents Kufuor and Nana Addo, we can and must rally behind his leadership to return this party to power.
But the existential threat that shadowed each of these leaders remains with us still, and it is us. It is the entitlement mentality, unchecked and unconfronted, that makes the NPP unattractive to the very people we need.
This entitlement does not question impact. It does not ask what you sacrificed or what you built. It asks only how long you have been here.
It operates like an invisible queuing system where, during primaries and internal elections, your loyalty is interrogated, your time of entry scrutinised, your contributions dismissed in favour of your position in a line nobody voted for.
The casualty is never just the individual sidelined. The casualty is the party itself, every time we fail to put our best foot forward because the best foot does not belong to whoever has been waiting the longest.
This is the question that entitlement breeds silently but dangerously in our ranks: Is this party worth dying for?
Our incoming national executives carry a tall order. They must recover and deepen the real ethos of this party, rooted in sacrifice, honesty, integrity and an unwavering love for the party and for a Ghana that has not yet seen its full potential.
Our party has a teeming youth population. Many became despondent after the 2024 defeat, and that is understandable. But there is renewed fire in those ranks and a determination to fight back hard because the alternative is stark. This NDC government offers our young people very little.
They want the NPP back in power, not eventually but urgently. What they will not tolerate is a party that asks them to die for it while the people at the top are simply fighting over position.
To be considered an elder in this great party is a privilege that carries weight. It requires that personal interest become secondary, that entitlement be reduced to its barest minimum and that your conduct draws people in rather than drives them away.
The NPP is bigger than any one of us. It always has been. Our collective responsibility is to act like it.
By Akosua Manu