A senior NPP legal mind makes a compelling, evidence-based case for why abandoning Ghana’s most energetic vice-presidential candidate would be a strategic mistake the party cannot afford.
Nelson Mandela once said, “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.”
Few people in Ghana’s current political generation, argues lawyer Iddi Muhayu-Deen, exemplify that ideal better than Hon. Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh. And with the NPP now firmly on the 2028 campaign trail under Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Muhayu-Deen has put his argument in writing, and it is one the party ignores at its own peril.
A record that speaks before the politics begin
Napo, as he is affectionately called across Ghana, is not simply a politician with charisma. He is a man whose view of political success, according to those who know him best, is measured not in titles held but in lives touched. It is this philosophy that has driven his entire adult life of what his supporters describe as selfless service to his people, his party, and his country.
The evidence of that service is not in campaign posters. It is in the classrooms.
It took courage of a particular kind to successfully roll out the Free Senior High School policy within the very first year of the Akufo-Addo administration, doing so in the face of strong resistance and deep skepticism from many quarters, including voices within the establishment itself. That policy today stands as one of the most transformative social interventions in Ghana’s Fourth Republic, having opened the doors of secondary education to hundreds of thousands of young Ghanaians who would otherwise have been locked out. Napo made it happen.
As Energy Minister, he brought discipline to the petroleum sector and helped ensure stable power supply during some of the most difficult global economic conditions in recent memory. These were not ceremonial appointments. They were demanding portfolios that required both technical competence and political nerve, and Napo delivered on both.
These extraordinary achievements, coupled with his nationwide appeal and his rare ability to connect with ordinary people across regional and ethnic divides, were precisely why Dr. Bawumia selected him as Running Mate for the 2024 general elections. The selection was not made carelessly. It was made on the basis of what Napo had already proven he could do.
What the 2024 defeat actually says
The NPP lost the 2024 election. That is a fact no supporter of the party can wish away. But the question that matters now is not simply that the party lost. The question is why it lost, and what the honest answer means for 2028.
Every credible post-election assessment tells the same story. The Oquaye Election Review Committee Report, research findings by Global Info Analytics, and analysis by KAS International all attributed the defeat largely to incumbency disadvantage, unpopular government policies, neglect of party grassroots, and the perception of arrogance of power. At no point in any of these findings were Dr. Bawumia or Napo identified as the cause of the party’s defeat. On the contrary, many of the same assessments acknowledged that the Bawumia-Napo ticket remained one of the party’s strongest political assets throughout the entire election period.
That is a finding worth reading twice. The ticket was strong. The party’s other problems cost it the election.
To punish Napo for a defeat that the evidence says he did not cause would not only be unjust. It would be strategically reckless.
As former Fomena NPP Constituency Chairman Akwasi Anti Asamoah put it plainly: “The party suffered defeat because of anger and it is not NAPO’s fault that we lost the election. He is the best person to partner Bawumia for the presidency.” The parallel he draws is instructive: former President Akufo-Addo maintained Dr. Bawumia as his running mate through three election cycles before they finally won. Consistency and loyalty were rewarded. The NPP should remember that lesson.
The case for 2028
As the NPP prepares for the crucial 2028 election, Dr. Bawumia has emerged as the party’s presidential candidate and is expected to name his running mate in due course. Naturally, many individuals and interest groups are currently lobbying hard for their preferred candidates. The names in circulation are many, and the pressure is real.
But Muhayu-Deen’s argument, written with the directness of a lawyer constructing a brief, is that the political realities and available data simply do not support the case for abandoning Napo.
If the objective is victory in 2028, then the most logical, strategic, and evidence-based decision is to maintain Napo as running mate. His competence, loyalty, national appeal, decisiveness, experience in government, grassroots connection, and proven campaign energy make him the best complement to Dr. Bawumia’s economic and technocratic profile. Where Bawumia speaks to the data and the macro-policy, Napo speaks to the person. That balance does not easily replace itself.
Napo is not only what party insiders describe as incorruptible and kind-hearted, but also charismatic, approachable, and blessed with the kind of genuine sense of humour that makes voters feel a politician is real rather than rehearsed. That is a scarce commodity in Ghanaian politics. NPP MPs who witnessed him at the 2026 State of the Nation Address spontaneously chanted his name and cheered him as he exited the Parliament lobby, with some crying out: “Yɛ pɛ Napo oh, Napo na yɛ pɛ,” meaning we want Napo, we still want Napo. That kind of organic energy is not manufactured in a campaign office. It is earned.
Both traditional and social media platforms continue to carry testimonies from Ghanaians across the country recounting how Napo has positively impacted their lives and livelihoods. The numbers of individuals and families whose lives he has touched are difficult to overstate.
The bottom line
The NPP faces a clear choice as it rebuilds for 2028. It can chase a hypothetical running mate, someone untested on a national campaign, unknown to millions of voters, and unproven under the pressure of a general election. Or it can maintain a man who has already demonstrated competence in government, proven loyalty to the party, energised the grassroots in 2024, and built genuine goodwill across the country.
Competent, loyal, courageous, grassroots-oriented, and nationally appealing, Napo continues to stand tall as one of the NPP’s greatest political assets. The facts make the case. The party simply needs the wisdom to follow them.
