Hot SourceFormer Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia has come out swinging against what he calls “tribal bigotry and propaganda” being peddled by his rival, Bryan Acheampong, in the lead-up to the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) presidential primaries.
Addressing party members in New York during the 33rd anniversary celebration of NPP USA, Bawumia said he was deeply troubled that, instead of addressing the real causes of the NPP’s 2024 electoral defeat, some aspirants were resorting to cheap, divisive tactics to undermine his candidacy.
“As we prepare to go into the primaries, I am very, very concerned and troubled that some of our presidential aspirants have embarked on religious and tribal bigotry and propaganda against me in a desperate attempt to win votes,” he declared to loud applause.
Prior to Bawumia’s rebuttal, Bryan Acheampong — himself an aspirant in the NPP flagbearership race — had been urging delegates to reject Bawumia’s bid to lead the party into the 2028 elections. He argued along ethnic lines, claiming that the NPP’s poor showing in the 2024 polls was partly due to Bawumia’s Mamprusi roots.
According to Acheampong, the Kusasis, seen as long-time rivals of the Mamprusis withheld their votes from the NPP because of Bawumia’s ethnic identity. He went further to link Bawumia’s background to the protracted Mamprusi-Kusasi conflict, insisting it would continue to cost the party politically.
It was in New York, before party faithful gathered for the NPP-USA’s 33rd anniversary, that Bawumia directly addressed and expressed his disappointment in Acheampong’s line of reasoning.
Bawumia accused Bryan Acheampong, also vying for the party’s flagbearership, of deliberately exploiting the long-standing Mamprusi-Kusasi conflict to whip up fears among delegates. According to him, Acheampong has been telling party members that voting for a Mamprusi candidate like himself would make the NPP lose support in Kusasi-dominated constituencies.
“This is very unfortunate and demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the situation on the ground,” Bawumia hit back.
He then took his audience through the hard numbers: out of 11 general elections since 1965, the NPP has failed to secure seats in the six Bawku Zone constituencies in six contests. At best, the party has won two seats there — in 1969 and again in 2016.
“In 2024, we lost just about 30,000 votes in the entire Bawku Zone. So it is not the Bawku election that made us lose 2024,” he said. “The data shows that the Bawku factor was not a factor in the outcome of the 2024 elections. We must stop misleading delegates with such propaganda.”
Bawumia warned that such “psychopropaganda” not only misdirects the party but also risks fanning needless division at a time when the NPP needs unity to bounce back.
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