Here are the false and true claims in NAPO’s commentary on outcome of Election 2024

On January 14, 2025, the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) running mate for the 2024 election, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh (Napo), granted an interview to a couple of media houses at the premises of parliament where he commented on the outcome of the 2024 elections.

Fact-Check Ghana has verified some of the claims of the NPP’s running mate and present the facts below.

Claim: “President Mahama lost 5% votes in the Greater Accra Region”.

Verdict: True

Explanation: According to data from the Electoral Commission (EC), candidate John Dramani Mahama obtained 1,326,489 votes in the  Greater Accra region in the 2020 elections. In the just ended 2024 elections, Mahama garnered 1,260, 832 votes in the region, according to data on the EC’s website. Comparing the 2024 and 2020 elections, Mahama lost 65,657 votes. This is equivalent to 5.08% making Napo’s claim true.

Claim: “For a long time, the highest region for NDC vote has always been the Ashanti region, the whole country”, “if NDC says they have a world bank, the votes of the NDC world bank is in Ashanti”.

Verdict: False

Explanation: Since the 2000 elections, Greater Accra region, rather than the Ashanti region, has recorded the highest votes for the NDC excerpt in 2016. It was only in  2016 when the Ashanti region recorded the highest number of votes for the NDC. Below is a comparison of the votes the NDC has recorded in Greater Accra and Ashanti region since 2000.

Votes NDC obtained since 2000

Therefore, the claim that the Ashanti region is the region with the highest votes for the NDC is not true.

Claim: “When His Excellency John Dramani Mahama was handing over, the debt in the energy sector space was over 5.2 billion”.

Verdict: False

Explanation: In his first State of the Nation Address  (SONA) in 2017, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo stated that the debt in the energy sector as of December 2016 was $2.4 billion. The figure was later confirmed by Ken Ofori-Atta in 2017 (here and here). Kojo Opppong Nkurmah, then the Deputy Information Minister also made reference to the figure in a media interview. The $2.4 billion was said to comprise debt of $1.2 billion owed fuel suppliers and the VRA’s indebtedness to commercial banks. Ghana Gas, GRIDCo, Asogli, NEDCo among other energy sector players owed an estimated 1 billion dollars.

Therefore, the claim that the debt in the energy sector when President Mahama was handing over is 5.2 billion is not true.