Rita Talata Asobayire, Second Vice Chairperson of Ghana’s New Patriotic Party (NPP), has strongly denied allegations that she criticized the party’s General Secretary for its 2024 electoral defeat.
The senior party official has announced plans to pursue legal action over what she describes as fabricated statements attributed to her in media reports.
In an official statement, Asobayire clarified she never appeared before the party’s post-election review committee chaired by former Speaker Mike Ocquaye. “I was out of the country when the committee met with national executives,” she stated, adding that her absence had been formally communicated to the panel. The veteran politician expressed shock at seeing purported comments bearing her name circulating in news reports.
Asobayire has instructed her legal team to initiate court proceedings to clear her name, signaling a firm response to what she views as political misinformation. The controversy emerges as the NPP conducts its post-election review following December’s polls, where the party lost power to the National Democratic Congress.
Political analysts note this incident reflects heightened tensions within political parties during electoral postmortems, where blame attribution often becomes contentious. The threatened lawsuit could set a precedent for how Ghana’s political class handles misinformation during sensitive internal party evaluations. Legal experts suggest the case may test the boundaries of media responsibility when reporting on unverified party documents.
The NPP’s leadership has yet to officially comment on the authenticity of the disputed report or the allegations it contains. As the party prepares for opposition after eight years in government, maintaining unity during this transitional period remains a critical challenge for its leadership. The outcome of Asobayire’s legal action may influence how future intra-party disputes are managed in Ghana’s increasingly competitive political environment.
Read Her Statement Below
My attention has been drawn to a statement making rounds on social media purporting to be a direct quotation coming from me and said to have been captured on Page 66 of the Oquaye Committee Report. The statement alleged that I had told the Oquaye Committee that our General Secretary, Justin Kodua Frimpong “came across as an armchair leader – uninspiring and seemingly unable to keep Appointees accountable”.
This statement attributed to me was also published by Opera News, an online news portal under the headline, “Rift in NPP leadership: Oquaye Report Exposes Cracks as Vice Chairperson Slams General Secretary”. The publication went further to say that I had told the Committee that the inactions of the General Secretary, “contributed significantly to the party’s poor performance”.
I wish to place on record that I made no such statement anywhere. It is complete fabrication by whoever may have authored it for political mischief. As a matter of fact, I have NOT interacted with the Oquaye Committee and have NOT made any appearance before the Committee. I was actually NOT in the jurisdiction at the time the Committee met with the National Executives, and this fact was duly communicated to the Committee.
Beyond that, I am also very much aware that the Party has NOT yet disclosed nor released any portion of the Oquaye Committee’s Report to anybody, and so, all the quotes out there purporting to be from the Report and which are being circulated on social media mainly by activists of the NDC, are completely FALSE. The quote attributed to me is therefore not an exception.
However, given the wide publicity it has received, I take a serious view of the conduct of the author(s) and all those publishing or republishing the statement in the media including Opera News. I demand an immediate cessation of this reprehensible conduct. In the case of Opera News, I demand an immediate retraction and unqualified apology from the publishers.
I have given express instructions to my lawyers to proceed to court to vindicate my rights in the event that my demands are not met. Finally, for the avoidance of doubt, I wish to state emphatically that the General Secretary and I have had an excellent working relationship. His leadership style is marked by firmness and political astuteness. It is therefore inconceivable that I could pass such uncomplimentary verdict on him.
…End…
RITA TALATA ASOBAYIRE
NATIONAL 2nd VICE CHAIRPERSON, NPP
