Leading member of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr Arthur Kennedy, has reacted to the general amnesty the party’s leadership has offered to suspended members of the party as well as those under investigation by its disciplinary committee.
Speaking in an interview on JoyNews on Monday, August 18, 2025, Dr Kennedy indicated that even though the move by the NPP leadership was good, it is not enough.
He asserted that the party lost the 2024 election because of the treatment of some of its members and also because Ghanaians were very unhappy with its actions, stressing that the amnesty will not address the fundamental issues of the party.
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“In actual fact, the 2024 election was lost partly because we were divided. Twenty percent of John Mahama’s votes came from old NPP members who never resigned publicly, so they don’t need amnesty. But those votes must be earned back in 2028.
“… we need to reassure them that we heard their message, that we understand our mistakes, that we are more humble; but I think that this amnesty does not address that. N ot only that, this amnesty is hypocritical because we are the same party that in 2008 brought somebody who didn’t have a party membership card and made them running mate… Earlier that year, at least five people who wanted to run as parliamentary candidates had been disqualified because they had not ‘developed the party enough’,” he said.
“So, I think that we owe a lot of people apologies, not just amnesties. Paul Afoko, for example, Kwabena Agyepong, for example, the Alan supporter who lost an eye, and all those people. We need to apologise to Ghanaians for running the party as if it were a private club that belongs to a few individuals. A party is a public institution and must be run in a way that is attractive to people,” he added.
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The NPP has granted a general amnesty to all members of the party who have been suspended or are facing disciplinary proceedings, as part of efforts to foster unity and reconciliation within the party.
In an August 16, 2025, statement signed by the acting National Chairman, Danquah Smith Buttey, it said the decision was taken at an Emergency National Council meeting held on Friday, July 25, 2025.
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