The New Patriotic Party’s Third National Vice Chairman, Alhaji Osman Masawudu, popularly known as Chairman Buga, has spoken out on what he described as the party going into the Akwatia by-election on September 2, 2025, “naked.”
Speaking on Original FM, Alhaji Buga revealed that the party’s election machinery, which was expected to coordinate activities for the by-election, was in total disarray. He explained that no national officer was assigned to oversee the process, leaving the entire operation poorly managed.
He directly accused the party’s leadership—particularly the General Secretary, Justin Frimpong Kodua, and the National Organiser, Henry Nana Boakye—of leading a disorganised front into the election.
Alhaji Buga further alleged that, due to these poor arrangements, the Acting National Chairman, Danquah Smith Buttey, was kept in the dark about election plans. According to him, five days before the election, the General Secretary even refused to answer the chairman’s calls.
According to him, “The national chairman had to lodge at Adeiso because he could not get hotel accommodation at Akwatia because all the hotels were booked. Who were those who booked all the hotels?”
All other national executives who travelled to Akwatia to lend their support to the party and the candidate, in particular, became disillusioned because the party failed to have arrangements in place to take care of them.
“Buttey told me he was not aware if the party devoted any money to be used for operations, so I spent my own money to do my own operations. When I asked Nana B about internal party security arrangements, he said all the security arrangements were given to Henry Quartey,” he added.
Following this answer, he stated that he had altercations with Nana B on a particular platform because he could not understand why all security arrangements were given to Henry Quartey, especially when Quartey did not hold any national executive position.
“If I had died in Akwatia, how many national executives would have loved to drive their Land Cruiser vehicles to Tamale to attend my funeral? It would have been a great loss to the Dagombas. We went to Akwatia naked.”
According to him, the inability of the party’s national executives to provide clear leadership before and during the elections allegedly contributed significantly to the party’s heavy defeat.
National Democratic Congress’s Bernard Bediako won the election with 18,199 votes, defeating the NPP’s Solomon Asumadu, who secured 15,235 votes.
