Cletus Seidu Dapilah is Member of Parliament for Jirapa

Cletus Seidu Dapilah, Member of Parliament for Jirapa, has strongly criticised the New Patriotic Party (NPP) for what he describes as a misplaced approach to rebuilding the party after its defeat in the 2024 general elections.

Speaking in an interview with Lily Mohammed on GHToday on GHOne TV on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, Dapilah stated that the NPP had failed to learn from its electoral loss and was making the mistake of rebuilding from the top rather than from the grassroots a strategy he believes is bound to fail.

“My friends in the NPP have not learnt their lessons. You cannot organise a party using a top-bottom approach. When the foundation (the base) is weak, you will lose elections. Nothing can save you,” he said.

According to the Jirapa MP, the party’s defeat, by over 1.7 million votes, should have been a moment for sober reflection and proper introspection, especially by its former flagbearer and former Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia.

He criticised the party’s decision to quickly move into internal party activities such as organizing communicators and pushing forward leadership ambitions, without first addressing the dissatisfaction at the grassroots level.

“You’ve lost elections. Why did you lose the elections? It is because your base was disgruntled, because you took Ghanaians for granted. So if you want to rebuild, you cannot be rebuilding from the top down,” he stressed.

Dapilah emphasized that true party rebuilding starts from organizing polling station executives, zonal coordinators, and ward structures. He pointed to the example of President Akufo-Addo, who after his 2012 defeat, took a break to allow space for tensions to cool, a move he believed the current NPP leadership should have emulated.

He also suggested that the internal criticism from senior NPP members such as Kennedy Agyapong and Bryan Acheampong was a sign of deep cracks within the party, cracks that if not mended at the grassroots, will resurface in the next election cycle.

“You were vice president two times. You were the candidate. You lost by 1.7 million votes. Why don’t you take a break, reflect and reconcile with your base?” he asked.

Dapilah concluded that any political party that ignores its foundation is bound to collapse no matter how strong its leadership may appear at the top.