2024 Elections: NPP’s Northern defeat disappointing and unfair to Bawumia – Nitiwul

Former Defence Minister Dominic Nitiwul has expressed deep disappointment over the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) significant loss of parliamentary seats in the Northern Region during the 2024 general elections.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s Face to Face with Umaru Sanda Amadu, the Bimbilla MP admitted the outcome was far below expectations.

“The North, in particular, was very disappointing. Especially when we believed that we would be leaving the polls with 30 MPs and we got 10. I think it was very disappointing. This shows that next time, we have to do our work well.

“We will make sure that whatever went wrong, we do our work well. We’re doing extensive research—by all organs, MPs, all of us—to find out what exactly happened.”*

Nitiwul attributed the party’s poor performance partly to low voter turnout.

“Even in my constituency, turnout was around 77%, which is lower than in the 2020 elections, and I have to find out exactly why some people decided not to vote. It’s not because of a lack of development. I won handsomely, but still, a lot of people decided not to vote.”

As the NPP’s Northern campaign coordinator, Nitiwul said he was particularly saddened by the results, especially given the effort put in by the party’s presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.

“I was very sad [we lost seats in the North]. Because I was the coordinator for the campaign in the North. And I’m still not happy that it happened like that. It’s not fair to Bawumia because he worked so hard. I don’t remember anybody who has worked very hard like that. So I would say it’s not been fair.”

Despite the setback, Nitiwul sees an opportunity for the party to rebuild. He stressed the need for introspection and strategic improvements to regain voter confidence.

*”I made them do three polls; none came out with these types of results. We knew we had problems—we knew that in the Greater Accra Region, we had problems. We knew that in the Ashanti Region, we had problems because some people said they wouldn’t come out to vote. But not to the scale that we saw.

“But it also serves as a lesson that in Ghanaian politics, anything is possible.

“We should find a way to ensure that next time, we do our work well. The good news is that they didn’t come out to vote for the NDC. They stayed home. It means that there are people we can go and talk to, and they would listen—depending on how we go about it.”*