This week, I conducted a poll. I asked 200 Ghanaians their opinion concerning the January 2026 flagbearer race of the New Patriotic Party (NPP). I asked them: “When NPP leaders complain about intemperate and divisive language, which of the aspiring candidates do you believe they are talking about?”

Eighty-five per cent mentioned Kennedy Agyapong – not necessarily because they themselves believe it is so.

I then asked them to specifically recall one “insult” they had heard from Ken Adjapong against either the party or any of the other candidates. Sixty per cent could not recall. Of the 40% who did, the “insult” that came to mind was media reportage quoting his (Ken’s) appeal to NPP in 2024 to apologise to Ghanaians for economic woes.

I recall certain Kennedy quotes that were played back by the NDC a few weeks before the election. In boxing, they amounted to body blows, the kind that weakens an opponent to the point where even a tap can send him onto the canvas. In fact, Dennis Miracles Aboagye is on record as complaining that 90% of the adverts NDC used against NPP in 2024 were the voice of Kennedy Agyapong.

Political commentators point to the results of all the scientific polls conducted from January 2025 among NPP supporters and conclude that the low percentages against Ken are the reaction of the delegates to Ken’s utterances.

With less than six months before the NPP elects its 2028 Presidential Candidate, a poll by Global Info Analytics released on August 21 shows Dr. Bawumia commanding 52% support, with Kennedy Agyapong trailing far behind with 17%.

Against the backdrop of Global Info’s pinpoint accuracy in its prediction of the 2024 election, it is difficult to contradict this finding.

But surprise-surprise, Sanity Africa, a Pan-African civil society organisation, did a poll between April and June 2025, and reported that “overall, Ken leads with 51.4%, followed by DMB (Bawumia) with 42.2%.”

I have twice written (2018) against the unfortunate language by Ken, especially his public squabble with the socialite, Afia Schwarzenegger.

After listening to Ken in a recent interview with Kwesi Pratt, Jnr on Pan African Television, however, my opinion about Ken is changing.

Declaring, “we have to be brilliant on the basics”, Ken pissed on what he described as “theories” by so-called economic gurus whose solutions have not been able to put affordable food on the table or bring down prices for the ordinary Ghanaian.

Below, I list his operationalisation of the word “basics”.

Cocoa is good, Ken says, but he wonders: why must Ghana depend on only one crop? Take coconut, he says. Coconut juice is selling at 75 pence in the UK, and in Ghana, coconut trees grow everywhere.

He wonders why mangoes become so abundant in season till they rot here. In other countries, they are dried and sold as biscuits.

Beyond eating them, Ghanaians have virtually no use for pineapples. Elsewhere, the pineapple peel is used for perfumes, from Gucci to Calvin Klein, Chanel, Saint Laurent to Giorgio Armani, available for a pretty dollar at airport duty-free shops, Marks and Spencer, Fortnum & Mason, Harrods, name them.

Talk about “basics”, and Ken is promising that he will ensure that the stems of plantain and banana, which we throw away in this country, will be used as floor carpet, diapers and tampers.

“Cassava can be used to produce 32 products, and any produce which can give this many economic benefits, gold cannot match. Cocoa is good; it has sustained this country’s economy even before independence, but now the market trends point to the reality that cassava is more economically profitable than cocoa, given that in Ghana, cassava abounds everywhere all year round”

He mentioned starch, from our cassava. Hear Ken: “There is starch in every tablet (pill) produced by the big pharmaceutical companies. From starch, we also get tetanol, which comes to us in vaccines and injections. 

Next, he lists ethanol. “Ghanaian companies are importing a total of 2.1 million tonnes of ethanol. As of 2022, ethanol on the world market is selling at US$962 per ton. All we need is 47,000 acres of maize for two seasons to produce 2.1 million tonnes of ethanol, which can fetch us US$2 billion. Only a year or two ago, Ghana was on its knees before IMF economists, asking for $3 billion bailout.”

That makes sense. So I ask myself: why is Ken not saying the same things in his campaign rallies? I can assure him that people are tired of economic theories, especially given the last showing by a Finance Minister with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Columbia University and an MBA from the Yale University School of Management. The elite economists of this world who work for the IMF and World Bank are from Yale. So why are we still grappling with GDP, exchange rate, macro and micro economic indicators?

If I were Ken, I would listen to my advisers and tone down on rhetoric against my own party. Remember, the delegates who voted in the 2024 primaries are the same for January 2026.