Former General Secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu, has said that either former President Nana Akufo-Addo or former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia should have personally met with former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo and other aggrieved bondholders during their picketing over the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP).
Speaking on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem, Mr. Boadu described the government’s handling of the situation as a major political and communication failure that cost the NPP sympathy from its own support base.
According to him, the DDEP had a devastating impact on more than 800,000 people—many of whom are educated professionals and investors aligned with the party.
“The debt exchange programme really affected us because over 800,000 people were hit. Majority of the elites are NPP members, and these are the people who invest or buy bonds. So a chunk of those affected in the DDEP were our own members,” he said.
He explained that many of these individuals were not seeking government appointments but had invested their personal savings in bonds, only to suffer significant financial losses.
“The party came into power, and they didn’t go asking anyone for jobs. The little money they had, they invested in bonds and were given a haircut,” he lamented.
Mr. Boadu recalled how the participation of former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo in the bondholders’ protest should have alerted the government to the seriousness of the matter.
“To the extent that a former Chief Justice, Sophia Akuffo, went on picketing — that optics alone was serious, but we trivialised it,” he remarked.
He criticised the decision to delegate the Finance Minister to handle the situation, arguing that it failed to reflect the appropriate level of sensitivity and respect.
“When this happens, you don’t send the Finance Minister to talk to them because, in terms of hierarchy, the Finance Minister is under the Chief Justice. It should have taken the Vice President or President to walk there and address them,” Mr. Boadu stressed.
He added that such a direct engagement from top leadership would have demonstrated empathy and helped explain the rationale behind the government’s difficult decisions.
“At that top level, we should have addressed the people and made them understand the reasons, which I know there were,” he said.
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