Professor Joshua Alabi, the Campaign Manager for John Mahama’s 2024 campaign team, has outlined key factors that led to the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) defeat in the 2024 general elections, particularly in the Northern regions.
The NPP had anticipated splitting votes with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Northern regions, but the NDC secured a decisive victory, winning the majority of parliamentary seats and increasing its share of the presidential vote in the area.
In an interview with Bernard Avle on The Point of View, aired on Channel One TV, Professor Alabi attributed the NPP’s poor performance in the North to the party’s inability to fulfill its commitments to the region. He explained that voters redirected their support to the NDC because of broken promises and unmet expectations under the NPP administration.
He specifically criticized the NPP’s presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who leads the government’s Economic Management Team, for failing to deliver on key pledges made to the Northern populace. These promises, according to Prof. Alabi, included the construction of dams in every district under the “One Village, One Dam” initiative and the allocation of one million dollars per constituency, commitments which he said remained largely unfulfilled.
Professor Alabi emphasized that the NDC’s strong performance in the North reflected the electorate’s demand for accountability and tangible development.
“It started in 2016, they had a good material in the name of John Dramani Mahama, but he was the President at that time. Another Northerner comes and tells them that no, you vote for me, one-child-one chocolate, you vote for me and One-District-One-Dam. And I must tell you getting a dam in any of the communities in the North is a breakthrough. So when you come and tell us that One-District-One-Dam, is a very good campaign message.
“One-Constituency-One million dollars, who doesn’t want this? So it makes some people shift. And now haven’t shifted, the man [Bawumia] had sat in the chair as a leader of the Economic Management Team, and he couldn’t even fulfil the promises that he made.
“So they had to shift to their own man who had been truthful to them and had been doing what he told them he would do. And that is what is accounting for moving from the increases in the North for the NPP to decline in the 2024 elections.”