The General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Justin Frimpong Kodua, has expressed disappointment in founding member Dr. Nyaho Nyaho-Tamakloe for criticizing the party’s leadership in light of the arrest and detention of the Ashanti Regional Chairman, Bernard Antwi Boasiako, popularly known as Chairman Wontumi.
Kodua questioned whether Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe, a senior figure in the party, is pursuing an agenda or mission that warrants scrutiny, following his comments on Wontumi’s arrest—comments which, according to Kodua, condemned the party rather than sympathized with its current challenges.
“I’m surprised that a founding member of the party does not empathize with the trauma the party is experiencing. Rather, he chooses to criticize the very party he helped build,” Kodua said in a media interview.
He further challenged Dr. Nyaho-Tamakloe’s comparison of the current NPP leadership to former party stalwarts such as B.J. Da Rocha and Peter Ala Adjetey, insisting that those leaders would have acted similarly under the current circumstances.
“If those individuals were alive, they would have supported us. They were staunch believers in the rule of law and would not have remained silent in the face of unlawful arrest and detention,” he argued.
Kodua emphatically described Wontumi’s ongoing legal troubles as “political persecution,” particularly in light of what he termed “unreasonable and unconscionable bail conditions.”
Chairman Wontumi was reportedly transferred to the National Investigations Bureau (NIB) headquarters after failing to meet a GH₵50 million bail requirement set by the Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO).
He had spent over 48 hours in EOCO custody before the transfer. The bail conditions required two sureties, which, according to party insiders, have proven difficult to meet.
Kodua lamented that others accused of even more serious offences have previously been granted more favorable bail terms.
“At the end of the day, if this is not political persecution, then what else is it?” he queried.
He maintained that the NPP has every right to demonstrate and raise awareness about what he described as injustices being meted out to the party’s regional chairman.
Wontumi is under investigation for alleged offences including fraud, causing financial loss to the state, and money laundering.
Deputy Attorney General Justice Srem-Sai confirmed on his official X (formerly Twitter) account that EOCO is handling the case and that asset recovery efforts are underway to secure suspected proceeds of crime.