2008 was a warning. 2024 was a repeat. 2028 is loading.

History showed the cost of sabotaging your own in 2008, but the NPP ignored it in 2024 and is now poised to watch the same script play out in 2028.

There are two kinds of politicians: those who lift the ladder for the next climber, and those who kick it away out of spite. Alan Kyerematen chose the latter, and the NPP bled for it.

In 2007, with President Kuffuor completing his tenure, Nana Akufo-Addo won the NPP flagbearer slot. Alan, the first runner-up with a commanding 32.30%, had the power to deliver a united front. Instead, he cracked the foundation. Months before the December 2008 election, he theatrically resigned from the NPP, only to crawl back later. But the damage had  already been done. The party’s focus splintered, Akufo-Addo fell short of the 50% + 1 threshold by less than a single percentage point, and the NPP was condemned to eight years in the wilderness. Alan ignored the lesson and challenged Akufo-Addo again in 2010, losing; and in 2014, suffering a bruising collapse with under 5% of votes. That emphatic and humiliated defeat statement delivered by delegates to Alan, gave the party a united front, leading to a landslide victory in 2016.

That was no accident. It was ambition overruling strategy, personal pride overriding party interest. Alan pursued division and, in doing so, delayed Akufo-Addo’s presidency for nearly a decade.

Fast forward to today: the NPP has lost the 2024 election and is now lacing up for its primaries ahead of 2028. Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, by loyalty, governance depth, policy grasp, internal heritage balance, and broad national appeal: should be the undisputed heir. Instead, unity risks being sacrificed again on the altar of personal ambition. Kennedy Agyapong, stepping into Alan’s old shoes, appears ready to pull at the party’s ankles just when it needs to be sprinting.

This is the curse of crab-in-a-bucket politics: nobody escapes because everyone is too busy dragging the other down. It is not petty rivalry; it’s political suicide. In 2008, Alan’s sabotage cost the NPP eight years in the wilderness. If the same poison continue to seep into Bawumia’s bid, he may not become president until his third attempt, by which time Kennedy and other rivals will have aged out of relevance, and the party will have squandered yet another cycle.

The NPP must now choose: keep rehearsing the same tragedy or painfully learn from it. Voters have no patience for a party that cannot rule itself. The scars of 2008 and 2024 should be enough warning, not a prophecy. The lesson is brutally simple: if the NPP cannot unite in the moment of succession, it will not just lose elections, it will lose the right to call itself a winning party.

J. A. Sarbah | PP Strategist.CL |

Civic Advocate | VoNC

Powered by Froala Editor