The New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) national executive elections on 3 October 2026 ended several leadership ambitions. They also exposed how far pre-election polls had misread the mood of more than 7,000 delegates at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi.
The sharpest case was the general secretary race. A University of Ghana research poll published in September found that 74.2 per cent of surveyed delegates expected former Subin MP Eugene Boakye Antwi to win. He finished third with 162 votes.
The results matter beyond the individuals involved. The executives elected in Kumasi will rebuild the opposition party after its 2024 defeat and run its organisation into the 2028 general election. Here is how the most prominent losers fared.
Boakye Agyarko
Former Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko lost the national chairmanship to former General Secretary John Boadu by 840 votes. Boadu polled 2,888 votes to Agyarko’s 2,048, while former National Chairman Paul Afoko took 490.
Boadu’s win completes a comeback. He lost the general secretary post to Justin Frimpong Kodua in 2022 and now returns as chairman, working alongside the man who unseated him.
Agyarko accepted the result in a statement on 4 October. “I stand fully and resolutely ready to support Chairman John Boadu,” he said, and he also pledged support for flagbearer Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.
Eugene Boakye Antwi
No candidate fell further short of expectations. Boakye Antwi had campaigned on the argument that no NPP general secretary who lost a general election had ever been retained. He pointed to the party’s loss of about 50 parliamentary seats in 2024, which handed the National Democratic Congress a two-thirds majority.
Delegates disagreed. Kodua kept his job with 4,486 votes. Former Ngleshie Amanfro MP Sylvester Tetteh came second with 1,340, ahead of Boakye Antwi’s 162 and Dr Charles Dwamena’s 126.
The University of Ghana poll had also found 76.6 per cent of respondents naming Boakye Antwi as their preferred candidate. A separate Global InfoAnalytics survey had pointed the other way. It put Kodua on 36 per cent and Boakye Antwi on 10 per cent, with 46 per cent undecided.
Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid
Former Information Minister and ex-National Petroleum Authority chief executive Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid missed out on a vice-chairmanship by 31 votes. He polled 2,956 votes and finished fourth in a 13-candidate race for three seats.
The winner of that race was Kojo Fosu Boadu, known as Kojo Bamba, a former leader of the pro-NPP Delta Force group. He topped the field with 3,116 votes. Henry Nana Boakye, known as Nana B, came second with 3,061. Global InfoAnalytics had put Bamba on just 17 per cent before the vote.
Nana Akomea
Nana Akomea, a former Information Minister and close ally of Dr Bawumia, did win a vice-chairmanship. His 2,987 votes left him third, however, 129 behind Bamba, the former Delta Force leader whom many in the party had not expected to top the poll. The ranking matters: the first vice chairman runs the party’s affairs whenever the national chairman is absent.
Chris Lloyd Nii Kwei Asamoah
As outgoing Deputy National Youth Organiser, Chris Lloyd Nii Kwei Asamoah went into the race to succeed Salam Mustapha with an inside track. He left with 46 votes, fifth of six candidates.
Abanga Fuseini Yakubu won the post with 1,550 votes, a margin of 919 over runner-up Clement Opoku Gyamfi, who polled 631. Michael Osei Boateng took 78 votes and Vera Oye Bram-Larbi 44.
Alfred Ababio Kumi
Alfred Ababio Kumi, popularly known as Adenta Kumi, finished last in the same youth organiser contest with 25 votes. That is less than two per cent of the winner’s total.
Voting took place at 31 polling stations at the stadium under the supervision of the Electoral Commission, which declared the results in the early hours of 4 October.
