For a young man mindful to apply my heart to Wisdom in this vain world, I am often caught in taking stock of this journey while I sojourn, of course, with many others I encounter. Hence, I am usually confronted with the questions; “To what end?” An inquiry or I could say estimation into the end from the beginning and “What have we become?” Another inquiry at the end of each pursuit. A disposition probably cemented by my training in Monitoring and Evaluation, where I get to apply various evaluation modules to track various levels of development outcomes to inform learning and action.
I have spent considerable time recently reflecting on the extraordinary journey of all of us young people who rallied behind the Movement for Change towards the 2024 elections. You see, far from some assumptions people hold about the entirety of the Yellow Army, many of us young people especially, did not join that movement because we hated the New Patriotic Party. We joined because we loved Ghana! We were young people who had become deeply frustrated with the limitations of the NDC-NPP political duopoly that so normalized mediocrity and propaganda and genuinely believed that Ghana could be governed differently. We believed in urgency and in national development. We believed that partisan politics should never become more important than the country itself.
Most importantly, we believed in the vision then articulated by Alan Kyerematen of bringing all these adversarial NPP-NDC political actors together around a National Development Plan capable of taking Ghana beyond the endless cycle of political promises, elections, transitions and reversals.
That was the Ghana we were fighting for.
That was why many of us gave our time, our energy, our hard earned monies as young people, our reputation and, in some cases, our political futures to the Movement for Change.
But today, many of those same young people are quietly asking themselves whether the political vehicle they boarded was ever truly headed to the destination they imagined. The answer lies in the state of the so called United Party now.
Few days ago, I had a random phone conversation with someone who stayed in that political fold much longer than many of us did. His regrets were profound. What struck me most was that he essentially recounted many of the very concerns I had raised publicly in my Postmortem at the time I exited. Yet, almost instinctively, he added that perhaps I should not have put those things out publicly.
I understood his fears but was quick to tell him something I still believe deeply: “I Abilolo, am a person of light and there cannot be cleansing when the perverse deeds of men that so ruin hopes, are allowed to take solace in the dark!”
When you see something going wrong, you do not become a better patriot by hiding it. When you know that something is fundamentally inconsistent with the principles upon which you embarked on a journey, silence does not make you loyal. Speaking the uncomfortable truth is the highest form of loyalty to the cause you originally believed in. And with my fidelity to the truth, I did just that.
And I remain convinced that if all or some of these young people who now privately express regret for joining the Movement when we talk, had been courageous enough to confront the problems they saw when I was confronting them, Ghana might not be witnessing the political spectacle we are seeing today.
It is therefore almost amusing, though painfully so, that someone I once thought would never leave that fold now describes the United Party as an “Online Party.”
That description gave me a good laugh at a time I should be mourning my late brother.
But beneath the laughter is a serious tragedy that confronts our nation and politics. Because this was never supposed to be about creating another political organization whose principal political project is the destruction of the NPP. What we wholeheartedly committed to pursue, was supposed to be about changing Ghana with both the NPP and the NDC.
That distinction matters!
I have remained in touch with almost every significant young person whose disappointment with the duopoly, combined with a sincere belief in the possibility of a new national development paradigm, caused them to throw themselves wholeheartedly behind the Movement for Change.
And when I speak to them now, I hear remarkably similar sentiments.
They all harbor strong feelings of Resentment, Regret, Disappointment and Confusion. This is because we all have been patronised and cheated together with our goodwill we sacrificed for the pursuit. Indeed, for most of these young people, the thought of having ruined their chances with the NPP where they truly belong, hurts them and has left them exceedingly troubled.
And, increasingly, a painful realisation that many of the people who stood beside us in the name of a political transformation agenda, appear to have found a completely different destination from the one advertised. Politics to these cheap minded folks, is clearly an avenue for personal advancement
Let us be honest with ourselves.
Many of us who joined the Movement for Change meant well. We genuinely wanted Ghana to develop rapidly. We wanted a long-term development plan that would survive changes in government. We wanted competence, accountability and national purpose.
But somewhere along the journey, people with other funny interests entered the boat. And when a boat is carrying passengers with fundamentally different destinations, it eventually becomes impossible to pretend that everyone is still travelling together.
I and all former members with good conscience, continue to be troubled by the breathtaking contradiction between what we once preached and what some of our former comrades now defend.
We criticised the duopoly. Then a political party was formed. We said the existing parties were the problem and Ghana did not need new Political Parties! These were Alan’s justifications for starting a Movement rather than a political party at the time. Then in a much more hypocritical turn with impunity, the new party began positioning itself in the media around the destruction of one of them.
We criticised political hypocrisy! Only for some of the loudest voices of the old movement to emerge passionate defenders of almost everything the NDC does. We demanded accountability. Then accountability suddenly became partisan.
Was it not we who demanded independent thinking towards the 2024 elections??
Yet now, this mantra has become conditional upon whether the beneficiary was John Mahama’s government and of course, the stomachs of these loud men without principles!
How did we get here?
As most of you are aware, my exit from Alan Kyerematen’s political train was never an impulsive decision. With profound disappointment like you all bear, I left when the political party was formed. Indeed, I had been nominated for a Director of Monitoring and Evaluation for the United Party. One would have expected that the party emerging from the Movement for Change would be built around the national development philosophy we had spent so much time propagating.
Instead, I found myself unable to reconcile the political direction with the principles that had brought me and us into the movement in the first place.
I said it clearly in my exit note, which was widely published that the architects of the Movement for Change had criticised the duopoly, yet appeared to be establishing a new political party with the objective of destroying the NPP and becoming the other pole of the very duopoly they had condemned.
That, to me, was a betrayal of purpose.
How could I spend years telling Ghanaians that the political party system was fundamentally broken, only to become a member of another political party being set up out of mischief? I would rather return to help build the Party I have known from birth. The New Patriotic Party that groomed me and gave me levers all through life.
How could I tell young people that Ghana needed to move beyond the NPP-NDC paradigm and then help create another organisation whose political survival depended on replacing the NPP as the alternative pole?
I could not and still cannot. My loyalty has never been to a political personality.
It is to conscience, to truth, to principle and it is, to Ghana.
That is precisely why I am troubled when I watch people who once spoke with extraordinary courage about corruption, incompetence and political hypocrisy now find ingenious ways of explaining away every uncomfortable development simply because it is happening under the government of John Mahama.
Dare I ask, has it always been about what enters their stomachs??
Take the current GoldBod controversy for instance.
Let us be intellectually honest about it. The IMF’s 2026 report says the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase Programme generated losses of more than US$1.7 billion in 2025. The IMF identifies service and assay fees paid to GoldBod, discounts to off-takers and, exchange-rate losses among the factors contributing to the losses. If you assess the narratives critically, even the Goldbod CEO’s defenses suggest the point of Assay is a huge avenue for creating and padding losses.
GoldBod and the government have offered their own explanation, arguing that the programme was a policy intervention aimed at foreign-exchange mobilisation and economic stabilisation rather than a conventional profit-making operation.
Fine!
Now, let Parliament examine it! The minority is saying let the auditors examine and that is precisely the point.
Why should the few loud spokespersons of the United Party, who once demanded ruthless accountability now become defensive whenever uncomfortable questions are asked of the NDC government?
The Speaker of Parliament has already indicated that Parliament will scrutinise the matter precisely to determine whether the reported US$1.7 billion represents an actual financial loss or a policy cost.
That is how a serious democracy should work.
The answer cannot be: “Because it is our government, defend it!”
That is not a fruit of some Great Transformational Plan! It is at best, tribalism and cronyism with new clothing. The sheer lack of principle is nauseating and repulsive!
And we see this same contradiction in the fight against galamsey.
For years, we rightly condemned the destruction of Ghana’s forests and water bodies. We demanded stronger action even when President Akufo-Addo had launched some ruthless attacks on illegal mining. Yet illegal mining remains a serious national problem to date, including continued destructive activities in forest reserves and water bodies.
Again, the proper response is scrutiny, not blind defence.
If the system is working, prove it. If it is failing, fix it. If people are breaking the law, we prosecute them. That should be our standard regardless of who occupies the Jubilee House.
And this is where the hypocrisy becomes particularly painful. The same political actors that once presented themselves as some uncompromising alternative, now seem increasingly comfortable rationalising the conduct of the very political establishment they claimed Ghana needed to escape.
Why should incompetence and deceit from the NDC government become acceptable and excusable because it benefits us? It is now so clear the very essence of the Movement for Change we hold dear in our hearts and lives, is dead and lost on the United Party, the online party! Lol!
And so, to my brothers and sisters who once stood with us under that banner, I speak to you today with love and full appreciation of your plight.
Come home! The NPP is home.
The NPP is not perfect. I will never pretend that it is. The party has made mistakes. It has disappointed people.
It has had individuals whose conduct embarrassed the tradition. There are things we must reform, and there are people we must hold accountable.
But the answer to imperfections within a political tradition is not necessarily to abandon the tradition and become an enthusiastic defender of its historical opponent. We cannot also begin to entertain apathy either!
The answer is to return and help rebuild.
The Danquah-Busia-Dombo tradition gave us something deeper than an electoral vehicle. It gave Ghana a tradition of constitutionalism, private enterprise, individual liberty, institutional development, economic freedom and a belief that government must create an environment in which citizens can flourish.
That tradition is worth rebuilding and I believe it can be rebuilt.
This is why I believe the humble Dr Mahamudu Bawumia deserves the opportunity to lead that rebuilding. Dr Bawumia represents an opportunity for the NPP to renew itself, modernise its message, deepen its economic thinking and reconnect with a generation that is no longer satisfied with political slogans.
The future of Ghana cannot be built on nostalgia, but on competence, data, technology, enterprise, human capital and on systems that work regardless of who occupies political office.
That is why those of us who once dreamed of a transformational Ghana should not allow our disappointment with particular individuals to destroy our commitment to the larger national project. The people who sincerely joined the Movement for Change because they wanted a better Ghana have nothing to be ashamed of.
Trust me people, we were right to demand change! We were right to demand urgency! We were right to question the duopoly! We were right to dream of a National Development Plan for Ghana!
What we must now ask ourselves is whether the sycophantic political vehicle that has emerged from what we chose in the past, will help Ghana in the long run. The answer is increasingly clear anytime you see Hopeson Adorye defending rot on TV.
I have watched some of these very people who once spoke passionately about Alan’s transformational vision virtually abandon conversations about that vision, while positioning themselves to catch the attention of John Mahama and the NDC.
That should trouble us. Not because supporting another government is inherently wrong. But because principles cannot be abandoned merely because political proximity has become attractive and profitable.
I remember the conversations we had towards the end of the Movement for Change. I remember the conversations about the deliberate political machinations aimed at destroying the NPP. You all remember that night Aln addressed me saying; “It only means Abilolo is a true and true NPP man and I like that.” You remember my strong opposition at those plans to destroy NPP around the table with all those bootlickers!
Many of us young people refused to participate in such cynical agenda! You all should be proud you walked out!
Those memories today, should be enough to make us pause and reflect on the following:
If the objective of the United Party was genuinely to transform Ghana, why should the destruction of the NPP become the overriding obsession?
Why should a body born from dissatisfaction with political polarisation become another instrument of polarisation?
Why should people who once told us that Ghana needed something fundamentally different, now spend their political energies defending the indefensible?
And why should young people who sacrificed their reputations for a national cause now remain silent while the political machinery they helped build, drifts further away from the principles that attracted them?
We must not be afraid to admit when we got something wrong. There is no shame in changing direction when the signs change.
Like the prodigal son, there is no shame in returning home when you realise the road you took is not leading where you thought it would.
The real shame is recognising that something has gone wrong and remaining there simply because leaving would bruise one’s ego.
To every young Ghanaian who joined the Movement for Change because you genuinely wanted a better country, I am speaking to you. Do not allow the mistakes of a few people to destroy the idealism that brought you into politics.
Do not allow political disappointment to turn you into a passive spectator of everything you once condemned.
And to those doers of mischief for their stomachs, do not trade your conscience for access. Well, that is if at all the conscience is not beyond redemption!
You cannot exchange principles for relevance. Do not become so desperate to be noticed by the NDC that you forget the Ghana you originally wanted to build.
We must have the courage to reconsider our ways, to choose competence over propaganda, accountability over sycophancy, development over political survival, and truth over convenience.
You do not have to remain prisoners of yesterday’s decisions!
Return! Come and help rebuild the NPP!
Come with your criticisms, your frustrations, your ideas, your experience and with the lessons you have learnt.
Come and make the NPP stronger, more accountable, more modern, more inclusive and more responsive to the aspirations of young Ghanaians.
The door is open.
I am available to make that transition easier for anyone who genuinely wants to return to the NPP and help rebuild the house we abandoned in ruins!
Stop sitting on the fence! This is the time to make things right! Take heed and come home!
Thanks for reading!
