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Former Vice President and 2024 presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has pushed back strongly against what he calls a dangerous wave of tribal and religious propaganda being peddled against him in the run-up to the party’s 2026 primaries.
Addressing party supporters on Sunday, August 24, Dr Bawumia said he was “deeply troubled” that some aspirants seeking to lead the NPP were resorting to identity politics instead of focusing on lessons from the party’s 2024 electoral defeat and strategies for rebuilding public confidence.
“As we go into the primaries, I am very concerned and troubled that some of our presidential aspirants have embarked on religious and tribal bigotry and propaganda against me,” Dr Bawumia declared. “In a desperate attempt to win votes, they totally ignore the data and findings on why we lost the 2024 election and want to mislead delegates and the party wings with such propaganda.”
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Dr Bawumia revealed that one aspirant had gone as far as instructing delegates not to vote for him because of his Mamprusi heritage, claiming it would hurt the NPP’s fortunes in Kusasi areas of the north, where ethnic rivalries have historically shaped political loyalties.
“An aspirant has said delegates should not vote for me because I am a Mamprusi man and that I will lose votes in the Kusasi and other areas. This is very unfortunate and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the situation,” he said.
Although Dr Bawumia stopped short of naming the aspirant, his remarks were widely interpreted as a rebuttal to comments by Dr Bryan Acheampong, the Abetifi legislator and fellow flagbearer hopeful.
Speaking a day earlier, Dr Acheampong had argued that the NPP’s 2024 loss was partly due to tribal dynamics surrounding Dr Bawumia’s candidacy. According to him, unlike former presidents John Agyekum Kufuor and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who were perceived as ethnically neutral in the North, Dr Bawumia’s candidacy sharpened long-standing Mamprusi–Kusasi rivalries and weakened the party in key constituencies.
Dr Bawumia flatly rejected this reasoning, stressing that the NPP’s electoral setback was the result of wider governance and organisational challenges—not ethnic identity.
He urged aspirants to resist what he described as “lazy and divisive” campaign strategies, warning that such tactics could fracture the party at a critical moment.
“Tribal and religious propaganda will not help us win 2028. What will help us is unity, truth, and a focus on why we lost and how to rebuild. If we allow these distractions to dominate, we will lose sight of the real issues that matter to Ghanaians,” he cautioned.
The exchange highlights the growing tension within the NPP ahead of the 2026 primaries, where the stakes are high following the party’s loss to the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2024 general election.
For many observers, the dispute between Dr Bawumia and Dr Acheampong underscores not only the fragility of the party’s internal cohesion but also the risk of deepening identity-based divisions at a time when the NPP needs a unifying figure.
Party insiders say the leadership contest is shaping up as a test of whether the NPP can move past factional loyalties and identity politics to present a credible, data-driven vision to voters ahead of the 2028 general election.
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