Founding member and Elder of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe, has warned that the current leadership of the party is steering it towards destruction, citing the abandonment of internal democracy and grassroots participation.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Friday, January 30, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe said the party’s failure to rebuild from the grassroots following its electoral defeat undermines its core values of integrity, unity and democracy.

“If we truly want to win back the soul of the party, then we must do things democratically,” he said. “The proper way is to organise from the grassroots to the top. That has always been the tradition of the party, but unfortunately, it did not happen.”

He argued that any political party that suffers a major electoral defeat must return to the grassroots to assess what went wrong, engage supporters and rebuild its structures from the bottom up.

“A party that has been badly damaged in a general election cannot proceed the way the NPP is going now. You must go back to the grassroots, listen to them, let them tell you exactly how they feel, and allow even the broader population to understand why you failed,” he stated.

Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe stressed that rebuilding the party from the bottom to the top is the only path to sustainable success, warning that failure to do so would deepen internal divisions.

While he stopped short of declaring the NPP doomed, he maintained that the current leadership is taking the party in the wrong direction.

“I won’t say the party is doomed, but the leadership at the moment is leading the party into destruction,” he said.

He lamented what he described as the rise of “monocracy” within the party, insisting that the NPP’s founding fathers—whom he said upheld integrity, fairness and internal democracy—would not have tolerated the current situation.

“There are no internal democracy and no fair play. This is very dangerous,” he warned, calling for credible, transparent and fair primaries.

Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe also criticised what he described as the manipulation and imposition of candidates, as well as the monetisation of delegates, arguing that such practices weaken political parties and erode public trust.

“These are the very things that destroy political parties,” he said, adding that factionalism has now taken hold of the NPP.

He further warned that the factional nature of the party’s current presidential contest would make it extremely difficult for any eventual winner to unite the party.

“There are clearly factions in the party, and whoever wins will struggle to bring the party together. We have seen this before, and it completely destroyed the party in the past,” he noted.

As the NPP prepares for its internal elections, Dr Nyaho-Tamakloe advised delegates and aspirants to reflect deeply on the party’s history and return to its foundational principles.

“If they do not know the history of the party, they should study it,” he cautioned. “We have been here before. We must be careful.”