Several party members of the New Patriotic Party are revealing and guessing why they think John Boadu, incumbent NPP General Secretary lost woefully to Justin Frimpong Kodua at the just ended Delegates Conference at the Accra Sports Stadium.
Party members ascribed various reasons for John Boadu’s defeat citing his lack of respect for Party grassroots, his mafia “adwenkese3” tactics among others as reasons for his defeat.
The signs of his defeat were clear when the party Delegates hooted at him and Chairman Wontumi at the Accra venue of the conference.
The reasons for the defeat as discussed on social media are listed below:
Arrogance
Many party member said they only saw the humility of John Boadu at the conference venue. Before then, they had a view of him as being arrogant and unapproachable.
Party functionaries including even Members of Parliament and Constituency executives lament how John Boadu doesn’t even pick their calls or reply to their messages.
Many of them were waiting for him to teach him a lesson in the election.
Afia Schwarzenegger
John Boadu’s relationship with socialite Afia Schwarzenegger is also believed to have gone against him. Afia Schwarzenegger claims John Boadu is on her speed dial and she often calls him to clarify gossips he is privy to.
At a time he refused to pick party members calls, it was annoying for Delegates that Afia Schwarzenegger had easy access to him than them.
Afia said she called him when her beef with Wontumi started to ask him if he was not there when Wontumi offered her a job ahead of Delay.
He campaigned to the top people, not the bottom
John Boadu was also busily campaigning to win the support of top party officials instead of the party base. He managed to get the endorsement of all regional chairpersons who pledged their votes for him. His campaign launch also had bigwigs of the party in attendance while his opponent JFK campaigned to the grassroots.
Justin Kodua campaigned in all the 16 regions and 275 constituencies over the course of three months while John Boadu was expecting Regional and some Constituency executives and DCEs to campaign for him by whipping delegates in line to vote for him.
Galamsey
John Boadu is also one of the executives of the party allegedly involved in galamsey or small scale mining and making a lot of money from the business when Majority of the party grassroots are hungry.
He and the likes of Kate Gyamfua are directly and indirectly involved in mining but Kate Gyamfua is said to be releasing resources to her women at all levels. She won by over 93% of the women’s votes.
John Boadu on his part only empowered his boy, one Abanga, and was not releasing resources to the party base. A source said that John Boadu only pays media morning show hosts to hype him.
He started sorting out grassroots when his election became keener.
2020 elections results
The loss of several parliamentary seats by the NPP in the 2020 election was largely blamed on John Boadu as General Secretary.
John Boadu allegedly masterminded the suspension and disqualification of candidates during primaries leading to grievances and numerous independent candidates including Fomena. He refused to listen to advice.
President Akufo-Addo’s commanding lead in 2016 was also reduced by almost 50% by the NDC. John Boadu was blamed for everything that went wrong.