Akomea Drafted to Counter Agyarko In NPP Chair Showdown
TNR Files
Panic over independent-minded chair frontrunner forces flagbearer to deploy former communications director as ‘insurance’ in first vice-chair race.
Barely weeks before the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) national executive polls on 3 October, the Bawumia camp has activated a contingency strategy.
Former Communications Director Nana Akomea initially absent from the race has been convinced, reluctantly per insiders, to contest the First Vice Chairman position. The move, according to multiple party sources, is not about the vice-chair seat itself; it is about neutralising the threat posed by Boakye Agyarko.
Akomea joins a crowded field that includes Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, Henry Nana Boakye, Richard Ahiagbah, Alhaji Osman Masawudu, Sam Pyne and Fosu Boadu. But his entry is a calculated gambit.
The Bawumia team fears that their preferred candidate for National Chairman may not emerge, a concern rooted in recent regional election losses. Ashanti, Eastern and Northern Regions all perceived strongholds rejected the flagbearer’s favoured candidates.
The expectation had been that immediate past Ashanti Regional chairman Bernard Antwi-Boasiako, a close Bawumia ally, would secure the chairmanship. But “Chairman Wontumi” was sentenced to 20 years in July over illegal mining offences.
Though his aides picked forms on his behalf, the political establishment has already written him off. That leaves a vacuum and a clear path for Agyarko.
The former Energy Minister, widely tipped as the man to beat, is viewed by party stalwarts as competent, capable, and, crucially, “his own man”. His nomination forms were submitted by his sister-in-law, former Ayawaso West Wuogon MP Lydia Seyram Alhassan.
But these qualities, sources say, are a curse in the eyes of the 2028 flagbearer. The Bawumia team is uncomfortable because Agyarko will not kowtow to the whips of the former Vice President raising the spectre of friction and outright rebellion at the top.
Hence Akomea’s reluctant entry. If Agyarko wins the chair, the Bawumia camp needs a loyalist in a senior vice-chair position to serve as a restraint mechanism or a failsafe in the event of a “blast from the past”.
That past is instructive. Under Akufo-Addo as opposition leader, turmoil consumed the NPP, leading to the suspension of chairman Paul Afoko, general secretary Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, and second vice chairman Sammy Crabbe.
The acrimony spilled into violence, including the 2015 acid attack on Upper East Regional chairman Adams Mahama. Gregory Afoko, brother of the then chairman, was prosecuted for over eight years before his acquittal last year. The trauma lingers. Bawumia’s camp will not risk a repeat hence the demand for a failsafe operative in the executive.
In a separate but telling sub-plot, the Communications Director race has been rigged from within. Journalist Gordon Asare-Bediako, who had declared his intention, stepped down at the last minute to throw his weight behind Dennis Miracles Aboagye.
On the surface, a gesture of unity. Beneath, sources say Asare-Bediako was prevailed upon by the flagbearer to clear the path for his “darling boy” and 2024 campaign spokesperson.
This, despite Aboagye facing a daunting Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) investigation over alleged procurement irregularities involving GH₵55 million in public funds, following a forensic audit. The party has already claimed his detention was politically motivated tied to his aspiration.
But insiders tell The New Republic the true calculation is darker: Bawumia is pulling every lever to get Aboagye elected so that institutional cover can be marshalled to frustrate prosecution. A win at the polls, they reason, provides a shield against the law.
The Boadu-JFK flashpoint
A parallel fault line threatens to split the executive. Former General Secretary John Boadu, who lost the top administrative post to Justin Frimpong Kodua (JFK) four years ago, is now seeking the chairmanship. JFK, part of the leadership that steered the party into opposition, is seeking re-election as General Secretary.
Beneath the long silence between the two lies unresolved enmity. Party supporters are already quaking at the prospect of both winning; a Boadu chairmanship with a JFK general secretaryship is widely seen as a recipe for paralysis and internal war.
JFK faces Eugene Boakye Antwi, Henry Kokofu, Sylvester Tetteh, Isaac Asiamah, and Dr Charles Dwamena. But it is the ghost of Boadu hovering over the chair race that haunts the party machinery.
As the clock ticks toward 3 October, the NPP is running two parallel campaigns: one for public office, and another for internal survival.
Bawumia’s backroom fixers are moving pieces with surgical precision drafting Akomea, clearing paths for Aboagye, and desperately trying to avoid the paralysis that crippled the party in 2015. The question is whether these last-minute interventions will stabilise the house or burn it down.