Thanks for your advice on posters – NPP to UK's Hayward

The newly-elected General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, has said the governing NPP welcomes the concerns raised by the UK Conservative Party representative, Dr John Hayward, at the party’s National Delegates’ Conference in Koforidua to the effect that it has been wasting money on posters and billboards.

Dr Hayward urged the NPP to rather channel its time and resources into engaging voters.

In a goodwill message delivered to delegates of the NPP just before voting started on Saturday, 7 July 2018, Dr Hayward stated that the NPP shares the same values of the Conservative Party: “Belief in freedom, belief in development through progress, through business, through enterprise [and] a belief in individual responsibility and equal opportunity for all."

He, therefore, wondered why there was a sea of posters at the conference grounds and its surroundings, and, so, urged the NPP to have a re-think of strategy.

“I came through the streets today and I saw so many posters. Posters of the wonderful candidates here in today’s conference but I had to reflect, I think I saw more posters than our delegates here in the conference and I wondered: …Is this really the best use of our resources?’”

Dr Hayward stated: “Voters like parties which focus on the voters. Voters are less keen on parties that focus on their internal processes. This is an important lesson the Conservative Party has had to re-learn many times over the decades and I hope that you can benefit from my experience as I encourage you to go from here today and focus your time, your efforts and your resources on reaching out to the voters of Ghana, to reaching out to, and engaging with your communities in each of your regions, to listening to their concerns and ensuring that their concerns are represented in your hopes for prosperity and development in freedom for Ghana.”

Reacting to these comments on Ghana Yensom on Accra 100.5FM hosted by Chief Jerry Forson on Monday, 9 July, Mr Boadu said: “His concerns are not out of place at all and we welcome the advice he has given us.”



“This is something we worked with during the 2016 elections. As a party, we didn’t print much t-shirts and posters, we also didn’t raise too much giant billboards; we rather focused on sending our message to the grassroots, and, so, we share in his concerns.”

Mr Boadu, however, explained that: “Most of the posters you saw in Koforidua during the conference were printed by the individual aspirants from their own resources, and not the party. The party didn’t spend much money printing posters.”