Napo Admits: “We Didn’t Listen Enough”
Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, popularly known as Napo, the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) 2024 presidential running mate, has stated that a period of political reflection has led him to a clear conclusion that the previous NPP administration failed to adequately listen to the citizens, leading to a loss of trust.
In an interview on Joy News’ PM Express, Dr. Prempeh pinpointed the government’s failure to communicate as the primary error. When host Evans Mensah asked what caused the rupture in trust, the former Energy and Education Minister was, “We didn’t listen enough; we assumed a lot of things we shouldn’t have assumed.”
He added that this failure eroded the government’s sense of purpose and ultimately cost the party the people’s trust, with severe consequences.
Broken trust
Dr. Prempeh explained that the failure to listen created a fundamental disconnect with the public.
He described the outcome as a “broken trust” that directly influenced political results.
“One thing I’ve concluded in the last 10 months is that there was a broken trust between citizens and government,” he said. “The trust that was broken hurt so much so that we saw the results.”
Global context
While acknowledging their domestic failure, Dr. Prempeh also highlighted the immense global challenges the government faced. He argued that the world had been shaken on multiple fronts, economically and health-wise.
“We had gone through the West, global economic climate, medically and economically or health-wise,” he said.
He noted that governments worldwide were overturned by the crisis, and pointed to staggering economic shifts, such as the cost of a shipping container from China rising from $1,200 to $14,000. “People’s lifetime savings have been wiped out,” he added, noting the devastating human toll from the pandemic.
Lasting lesson
Despite the difficult global environment, Dr. Prempeh maintained that the domestic failure was paramount.
He concluded that not listening to the public early enough was the critical mistake that set the stage for everything that followed.
