The Founding President of the UP Tradition Institute, Dr. Razak Kojo Opoku, has dismissed claims by an aide to Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia that the 2024 New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer garnered more votes than any first-time NPP presidential candidate except Nana Akufo-Addo.
In a statement, Dr. Opoku described the assertion as a distortion of facts and an inaccurate analysis of electoral data. He argued that Dr. Bawumia, who served as Vice-President and Head of the Economic Management Team before leading the party in the 2024 elections, could not have “inherited” an economic crisis from anyone other than the same NPP government in which he served.
Dr. Opoku presented comparative electoral statistics from past first-time NPP candidates, including Professor Albert Adu Boahen in 1992 and John Agyekum Kufuor in 1996, to demonstrate that Dr. Bawumia’s raw vote margin of defeat — 1,714,179 votes behind John Mahama — was significantly larger than those of his predecessors.
According to him, Adu Boahen lost to Jerry John Rawlings in 1992 by 1,118,371 votes, while Kufuor’s first attempt in 1996 saw him lose by 1,264,880 votes. “A correct and well-trained data analyst would not rely solely on percentages to make such conclusions. Raw figures reveal the true scale of performance,” he stressed.
He also compared Dr. Bawumia’s showing to other vice-presidents who contested the presidency, noting that both the late Prof. John Evans Atta Mills in 2000 and John Mahama in 2012 performed better in their first presidential bids. Mills lost by 881,139 votes in 2000, while Mahama won in 2012 with a margin of 325,863 votes.
Dr. Opoku further recalled that Akufo-Addo, in his first run for president in 2008, lost by only 40,586 votes and secured 107 parliamentary seats for the NPP, underscoring the scale of the party’s 2024 setback.
“The dwindling fortunes of the NPP at both the presidential and parliamentary levels in 2024 should concern every true member of the party,” he said. “We cannot whitewash the magnitude of the 2024 defeat by comparing it to the 1992 and 1996 losses, which occurred after decades in opposition.”
He urged the NPP to treat the 2024 loss as a shared responsibility and to focus on presenting a candidate in 2028 who reflects the will of the majority of Ghanaians.
