Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the 2024 running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has told the party that no single ethnic group can give the party a president in Ghana.
According to Napo, whoever emerges as the presidential candidate of the NPP needs the support of every ethnic group.
Napo highlighted that political parties are national parties and not ethnic groups.
Speaking during an interview on Adom TV, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh explained, “Whoever emerges as the presidential candidate needs the support of every ethnic group. In Ghana, everybody comes from somewhere and is going somewhere. Before Kwame Nkrumah went to parliament, wasn’t he from prison?
When Nkrumah went to legislature assembly, wasn’t he from prison? I’m getting to the point that ascribing seats is wrong. We have to start doing things deliberately to let us all be Ghanaians. In the UK, wherever you are coming from, you can stand for the presidency”.
He continued, “Kwame Nkrumah became the first president, and Busia from the Bono Region became the second prime minister, but went to the legislative Assembly on the Ashanti ticket. Are the Bono people not a minority group in Ghana? Dr Hilla Liman, the third one, is from Sisala, but Ghanaians voted for him.
What I am saying, It is very National. No single ethnic group can give us a president in Ghana. We have to have respect for all ethnic groups to allow people to say that this is the best candidate.
The fourth president, Rawlings, was an ‘Ewe’, a typical national figure. Other Ghanaians voted for him; the whole of the North supported Rawlings like crazy”.
Napo further warned that when religion and ethnicity are added to politics, it ruins the national interest of Ghanaians.
“Since time in the memorial, the NDC’s largest vote came from the Ashanti region, and I have always said that once you introduce religion and ethnicity in politics, you have ruined the national interest of Ghanaians”, he added.
Meanwhile, in a separate interview, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh has admitted that some of his own utterances leading to the 2024 election contributed to the party’s defeat.
According to Napo, his own gaffes contributed to the NPP’s defeat in the 2024 election.
Speaking in an interview with JOYNEWS when asked by Evans Mensah in his reflection what he thinks his role was that contributed to the NPP’s defeat, NAPO stated, “ the NAPO gaffes it been public, probably very well misunderstood, but I can tell one, and I can tell you two. I can admit three”.
Napo, during the interview, clarified certain statements he made leading up to the 2024 elections.
Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh (NAPO) clarified that the “mo Kwame Nkrumah” remarks in the run-up to the 2024 elections were taken out of context and completely misunderstood.
He argued that the public outrage that followed his comment was interpreted as an attack on Ghana’s first President.
NAPO further highlighted his remark in comparison to a football banter to emphasise that arguing that he was not attacking Kwame Nkrumah.
Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh stated, “At that time, you can’t go into the evidence, so I made a statement ‘mo Kwame Nkrumah’, and I subsequently had to go to Nkroful and speak to the Chiefs there and explain the contest in which the statement was made,” he said.
“Because in politics, if somebody misunderstands, misquotes, or you allow your communication to be misread or to be misunderstood, you have to own it. So I owned it, and that is why I issued the statement,” he said.
He added, “Not that the context was wrong. I’m a die-hard fan of Kumasi Asante Kotoko. So if I’m teasing Olympic supporters and I said ‘mo Oly fuo no’, I’m not really insulting Olympic fans. I’m just upping Kotoko fuo because I am one of them”.
The former NPP running mate acknowledged, “It was totally misunderstood, and it generated a lot of uproar. Nkrumahists got furious, and I apologise to them,” he said. But he urged critics to reflect on Nkrumah’s own writings.
“They should go and read Kwame Nkrumah’s Last Days from Guinea and look at how he described his own Convention People’s Party (CPP). He said the CPP was dead. That’s Nkrumah’s own writing, so we don’t say these things out of lack of respect. You know me. I have friends everywhere,” he noted.
Watch the video below:
No single ethnic group can give us a president in Ghana – Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh pic.twitter.com/dJnFmqXDaK
— Ghana Chronicles (@_GhChronicles) December 11, 2025