New Patriotic Party (NPP) national chairman hopeful Awentami Paul Afoko has launched a second phase of high-level consultations, meeting four of the party’s most influential figures as he works to consolidate support ahead of the NPP’s upcoming National Delegates Conference.
Afoko, who served briefly as NPP national chairman between April 2014 and October 2015, has in recent days held separate meetings with former Vice President and 2024 flagbearer Mahamudu Bawumia, former President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, former President John Agyekum Kufuor, and former Assin Central Member of Parliament (MP) Kennedy Ohene Agyapong.
The meetings, confirmed by sources close to his campaign, form part of a deliberate nationwide stakeholder engagement strategy as Afoko pushes his three-pillar campaign platform he calls the 3R Agenda, Reunite, Rebuild, Recapture ,which he says will return the NPP to power in 2028.
“You cannot rebuild a house by ignoring the architects,” a member of his campaign team said, explaining the rationale behind the consultations.
The engagements carry significant weight. The meetings with Bawumia and Akufo-Addo are considered particularly consequential given that both men retain strong influence over the party’s direction. The visit to Kufuor, the NPP’s founding president under the Fourth Republic, is being read as a signal of Afoko’s commitment to institutional continuity and broad-based reconciliation. His engagement with Agyapong, a figure with demonstrated reach at the grassroots level, is seen as an attempt to lock in support among the party’s mobilisation base.
Sources say Afoko used the consultations to urge senior figures to resist assigning individual blame for the 2024 defeat, instead calling for collective responsibility and a forward-looking approach to reorganisation. He is also said to have reiterated his position that the party must choose its next national chairman on the basis of competence rather than ethnicity.
The current round of meetings follows earlier consultations Afoko held before the NPP’s January 31, 2026 presidential primaries, during which he engaged all five aspirants including Dr Bryan Acheampong, Ing Kwabena Agyei Agyepong, and Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum. He had also previously met with the Ashanti Regional Council of Elders and regional executives in Kumasi, where elders publicly backed his leadership credentials and called on him to help reclaim the party’s support in the five northern regions.
Afoko’s return to active party politics follows a turbulent decade away from its highest echelons. His original chairmanship ended in suspension amid allegations of undermining then-flagbearer Akufo-Addo, a controversy that was contested in court. His re-entry into the NPP was facilitated by a party amnesty programme announced after internal data revealed widespread disengagement among grassroots members during the party’s eight years in government.
The NPP is expected to hold its National Delegates Conference later in 2026 to elect national executives as part of its broader reorganisation ahead of the 2028 elections.
