I was not present in the room when the General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, Mr. Justin Kodua Frimpong, Esq., sat with some alleged leaders of the external branches and pretended to listen to how its elections were conducted.
I was not there when he nodded, took notes, acknowledged the flaws in his own first set of guidelines, and promised corrections. I was not at the NEC meeting on April 8, 2026, when the so-called corrections were approved.
But I do not need to have been in the room to know what happened. Because what came out of that room landed on my phone, traveled through every WhatsApp group in every chapter across the United States and other external branches, and hit the membership of NPP-USA like a freight train.
Two documents. Two directives. One intention: to break the spine of NPP-USA. I am angry. And I am not alone.
THE FIRST LETTER: A ROUGH DRAFT DISGUISED AS POLICY
The first set of guidelines that Mr. Kodua Frimpong issued for external branch elections was an embarrassment. I say that without apology. It was a copy-and-paste exercise lifted from domestic constituency rules and forwarded to external branches as though the diaspora were an afterthought — which, to this General Secretary, we apparently are.
The provisions bore no resemblance to how we operate. They contradicted our bylaws in the USA. They ignored over three decades of democratic practice that this Branch has built, refined, and defended since I was six years old.
When members across every external branch raised the alarm, the General Secretary and his Director of External Affairs are alleged to have convened meetings with the branch leadership. They asked them how the branch currently conducts its elections.
Let that sink in. They wrote the guidelines first. Then they asked how we run our elections.
That is not leadership. That is negligence dressed in a suit, period!
But my weak leadership gave them the benefit of the doubt. They assumed the consultation was genuine and trusted that the anomalies would be corrected, they were wrong.
THE SECOND LETTER: THE ONE THAT BURNS THE HOUSE DOWN
What arrived after those meetings was not a correction. It was an escalation. It was a provocation. And for over 600 dues-paying members of NPP-USA, it was a death sentence for their democratic rights.
The revised guidelines, approved at the April 8 NEC meeting, did two things simultaneously — and in opposite directions.
First, they raised the voting eligibility threshold from one year to two years.
Under the NPP-USA Bylaws and the 2022 Election Guidelines, a member who has been registered for at least one year, is in good standing, and has paid all financial obligations is eligible to vote. That is the rule. That is the standard. That is what 861 dues-paying members relied upon when they paid their money.
Mr. Kodua Frimpong’s revised guidelines wipe that out. With a single stroke of a pen in Accra, over 600 members, more than 70 percent of this Branch’s card-bearing, dues-paying membership are stripped of their right to vote. Not because they did anything wrong. Not because they owe a single dollar. But because a man who has never set foot in our chapter meetings, never observed our elections, and never understood our operations decided from thousands of miles away that their commitment does not count.
Second, and this is where the insult becomes unbearable, the same revised guidelines reduce the eligibility to contest for Branch office from four years to two years.
Read that one more time. The right to vote was made harder. The right to run for office was made easier. In the same document. By the same hand.
Members who have been paying dues, attending meetings, and sustaining this Branch are told they are not qualified to cast a ballot. But individuals who showed up two years ago — who may never have organized a single event, never trained a single polling agent, never given a single dollar to a campaign — are told they are qualified to lead.
Who writes a rule like that by accident? Nobody. This was deliberate. This was surgical. And the membership knows exactly who it was designed to benefit.
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
Let me say something that every single disenfranchised member of this Branch needs to hear, because it is the foundational principle upon which the most powerful democracy in the world was built:
You cannot take people’s money and deny them their voice. That is taxation without representation. It is the oldest democratic crime in the book.
NPP-USA accepted the dues of these 600-plus members. The Branch cashed their payments. The Branch counted them on the membership rolls. The Branch used their numbers to demonstrate strength. And now the Party is telling them: thank you for your money, but you do not get to vote.
That is fraud. Not in the criminal sense — though some might argue otherwise but in the moral sense. It is a breach of the most basic contract between a political organization and its members: you pay, you participate, you have a say.
Mr. Kodua Frimpong’s guidelines shred that contract. And the members whose rights are being stolen need to stand up right now and demand them back. Not politely. Not quietly. Loudly, clearly, and on the record.
Your dues were good enough. Your votes must be, too.
THE DOUBLE STANDARD THAT BREAKS A PARTY
And now let us talk about the hypocrisy, because it is staggering.
Just weeks ago, during the recent membership registration exercise in Ghana, this same Justin Kodua Frimpong was hopping from one radio station to another, from Accra to Kumasi, from Peace FM to Asempa FM, telling the Ghanaian public that newly registered members of the New Patriotic Party would be eligible to vote in the party’s upcoming internal elections.
He said it on live radio. He said it with conviction. He said it to encourage people to register. The message was unmistakable: join the party, pay your dues, and you will have a voice.
But when it comes to NPP-USA — the branch that has funded campaigns since my youthful days, mobilized resources, adopted constituencies, and bled for this party from across the Atlantic — suddenly the rules are different. Suddenly, one year is not enough. Suddenly, the General Secretary wants to control how American-based members vote in their own elections, under their own bylaws, using standards that he himself does not apply at home.
How does a General Secretary tell Ghanaians at home that new members can vote, and then tell Ghanaians in America that their one-year-old membership is worthless? How does that double standard not break the front of a political party? How does that not tell every diaspora member that their sacrifice is welcome but their franchise is not, and you want more members in your party?
It is no wonder that Mr. Kodua Frimpong is exiting office in the coming national elections. His management of party affairs has been characterized by inconsistency, insensitivity, and a pattern of unilateral decision-making that has alienated the very people the party depends on. The external branches did not create the crisis of confidence that surrounds this General Secretary. He built it himself, one directive at a time.
WHO BENEFITS WHEN 600 MEMBERS LOSE THEIR VOICE?
When a rule change disenfranchises the majority and opens the door for a select few, the question is never complicated: who benefits?
The revised guidelines create a pathway for exactly four individuals — four — who do not meet the Branch’s established four-year eligibility requirement to suddenly qualify as contestants. Under the rules that governed every previous election cycle, these individuals would not have been permitted to file a single nomination form.
And at the same time, the guidelines silence the very electorate that would have scrutinized those candidacies. Over 600 voters removed. Four contestants were added. That is not coincidence. That is architecture.
The whispers of inducement — of significant sums changing hands between certain aspirants and the General Secretary’s office to purchase favorable guidelines — are growing louder by the day. We are not in a position to verify them. But we will say this: when the guidelines themselves are this surgically tailored to benefit the few at the expense of the many, the document does the verification on its own.
THE ONE-MEMBER-ONE-VOTE BETRAYAL
NPP-USA pioneered the One-Member-One-Vote principle in the party’s external branches when I was six. It is the democratic bedrock of this institution — the idea that every registered, good-standing, card-bearing member has a voice, and that voice carries equal weight regardless of title, tenure, or connections.
Mr. Kodua Frimpong’s revised guidelines do not weaken this principle. They demolish it.
When you accept 861 people’s dues and then tell 600 of them that their votes do not count, you have not reformed a process. You have executed a democratic heist. You have replaced One-Member-One-Vote with One-Guideline-No-Vote — a system where the franchise is not earned through commitment but revoked by decree from a desk in Accra.
THE SPINE THAT WILL NOT BREAK
The New Patriotic Party — USA Branch was not built in Accra. It was built in living rooms in Maryland, in church basements in New Jersey, and New York, in rented halls in Atlanta, in the apartments of students in Ohio who pooled their last dollars to buy airtime and call home to campaign for the Party. It was built by men and women who worked double shifts and still found time to organize, to fundraise, and to fly to Ghana at their own expense to serve a Party that forgets them the moment the election is over.
The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party, Mr. Justin Kodua Frimpong, Esq., cannot and will not break the spine of this Branch. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.
This Branch has survived internal crises, legal challenges, factional disputes, and electoral defeats. It has emerged from every trial stronger, more united, and more determined. A directive from Accra will not be the thing that brings it down.
But survival is not enough. We demand respect. We demand consultation. And we demand that the 600-plus members whose rights are being stolen stand up and fight for what is theirs.
WHAT MUST HAPPEN NOW
This is not a request. It is a demand.
The revised guidelines must be immediately withdrawn or substantively revised as they apply to external branches — through genuine consultation, not performative theater.
The one-year voting eligibility threshold must be restored. It is the standard that has governed every credible election this Branch has ever conducted since my sixth year and now as an adult.
The four-year contesting requirement must be preserved. It protects the institution from capture by individuals who have not earned the right to lead it.
The General Secretary must formally explain why he raised the voting threshold and lowered the contesting threshold in the same document — because no democratic principle on earth justifies both.
And the national party must recognize, once and for all, that the external branches are not a subsidiary to be managed from Accra. It is a pillar to be respected.
THE FIRE AND THE FOUNDATION
There is an African proverb that says: “When you set fire to a man’s house, do not be surprised when he refuses to thank you for the light.”
Mr. Kodua Frimpong lit a fire with his first guidelines. He stoked it with his second. And now the Branch is being asked to stand in the flames and call it reform.
We refuse.
NPP-USA pioneered electronic voting when the rest of the party was still counting ballots by hand. NPP-USA built the 1 Constituency, 1 Chapter model that became a blueprint for diaspora engagement. NPP-USA has consistently punched above its weight, delivering resources, strategy, and loyalty that far exceed what it has ever received in return.
What is happening is not reform. It is demolition dressed as policy. It is the deliberate dismantling of a Branch that works, conducted by a man who did not build it and does not understand what it costs to sustain it.
The foundation of NPP-USA was laid with sacrifice. It was cemented with conviction. It was built by people who believed that a political party is only as strong as its commitment to its own members.
That foundation will hold.
The Branch will not fall.
By Theophilus Nkansah aka Senator Theo
NPP Massachusetts Chapter
