John Boadu: Banking Sector Clean-Up, Galamsey Fight Cost NPP In 2020 Elections

The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, has blamed the New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s supposed poor performance in the 2020 general elections on the contentious banking sector clean-up and the failure of the Akufo Addo government in rooting out illegal mining operations in the country.

At a meeting with the executives of the party in Tumu in the Upper West Region, Mr. Boadu claimed that these two main factors conspired against the party’s fortunes.

“A major decision to reform the financial sector really caused us because a lot of people lost their jobs and income. It was not for political expediency. We lost seats that we ought not to have lost. If we put our acts together, we will be able to win more seats [in 2024],” he said. 

It is not clear where Mr. Boadu is getting this post mortem from, but the Akufo-Addo government plummeted from the heights of public goodwill and was on the brink of losing the 2020 elections because of corruption as well.

The Akufo-Addo government is criticised as one of the most corrupt regimes in the history of the Fourth Republic and that played a major role in the party’s poor performance in the elections, political watchers have said. 

Consequently, it took serious controversy, including the widely believed manufacture of votes by the Electoral Commission led by Jean Adukwei Mensa, to help the NPP win the Presidential elections.

Even so, the NDC’s John Mahama did a respectable 6million votes against Akufo-Addo’s controversial 6.5million votes.

In the Parliamentary elections, the NDC split the seats 137 – 137 with the NPP.