New Patriotic Party (NPP) General Secretary hopeful Eugene Boakye Antwi has argued that the party has never retained a General Secretary after a general election defeat, insisting that the precedent should guide delegates in the upcoming national executive elections.

Mr Boakye Antwi said the party’s history shows that General Secretaries who presided over electoral defeats have traditionally been replaced.

“No general secretary in our tradition since 1992 who had lost a general election had gone on to, had asked to be retained and had accepted. Every general secretary who has lost a general election has been changed,” he said.

He made the comments in an interview on Metro TV’s Good Afternoon Ghana on Tuesday, September 1, as he explained why he is challenging incumbent General Secretary Justin Kodua for the position.

According to him, his argument is not a personal attack on Justin Kodua but a question of putting the party in the best position to recover from its 2024 defeat.

“It’s not against him. It’s about the party putting its best foot forward,” he said.

50 seats lost
Mr Boakye Antwi pointed to the NPP’s parliamentary performance in the 2024 election as a key reason he believes the party needs a change in its national leadership.

He contrasted Justin Kodua’s criticism of his predecessor with the results recorded under the current administration.

“I have a general secretary who campaigned in this country that his predecessor had lost 32 seats in one election cycle. And for that reason, he campaigned on that and got him voted out,” he said.

“That 32 seats loss kept us in government. He came in, we’re in government with all the resources and intelligence and what have you, and he lost 50 seats.”

Boakye Antwi said the scale of the defeat should be the central consideration for delegates deciding who should lead the party into the 2028 election.

He argued that the General Secretary has a particularly important role in parliamentary elections because the NPP’s ability to form government depends heavily on its performance in Parliament.

“The parliamentary election is what the party really works on or focuses on,” he said.

He added that Ghana’s electoral history shows that the party controlling Parliament ultimately has a major influence on who forms government.

87 Minority Caucus
Boakye Antwi described the NPP’s current parliamentary position as worse than the situation that prompted Justin Kodua to challenge his predecessor.

“He had lost 50 and sent it to position and NDC is controlling two-thirds. This is worse,” he said.

He also argued that the 2024 result was not simply a reflection of the performance of the party’s presidential candidate but evidence of a broader organisational failure.

“We just had a weak party under his care,” he said.

Mr Boakye Antwi maintained that the NPP had a strong presidential candidate but failed to provide the organisational strength needed to win the election.

“NDC had a strong party, by a weak candidate. But we had defeated John Obama by approximately one million votes,” he said.

“Do you understand? In 169 seats, unprecedented in the history of the Fourth Republic. But they had a strong party… But we had a weak party.”

Data exposes Kodua
The General Secretary hopeful said the figures from the 2024 election should speak for themselves when delegates assess the performance of the current national executive.

“If you go into a general election, you present 276 candidates, and you now only have 87. Are you happy with that?” he asked.

“Secondly, if you get 41% of the popular vote in this country, are you happy with that? I mean, it’s not me saying it, it’s the data.”

He said the NPP’s performance represented an unprecedented setback in the Fourth Republic and argued that delegates should consider the party’s electoral fortunes when choosing its next leadership team.

“This will be the worst administration ever,” he said. “It’s not me saying it, that’s the data speaking.”

Eugene Boakye Antwi, Sylvester Tetteh and Charles Dwamena are contesting incumbent General Secretary Justin Kodua Frimpong, who is seeking a second term at the party’s national executive election scheduled for October 3, 2026, in Kumasi.

He says his priority, if elected, will be to reorganise the party from the grassroots, unite its members and build a structure capable of winning a parliamentary majority and returning the NPP to government in 2028.