By:tntnewspaprgh.com

Dr.Matthew Opoku Prempeh, the 2024 running mate of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and a former energy minister, has stated that Kofi Abrefa Busia deserves their admiration, not because he never erred; he did, but because the central direction of his entire public life was principled.

According to him, Busia believed power must be restrained. “He believed politics was service. He believed education should build the human being. He believed tradition and citizenship could live together.

Busia believed enterprise should widen opportunity. rather than hoard it. And he believed, above all, that the point of development was to let every Ghanaian, every single one, live a life of dignity in freedom”.

Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, who’s popularly known in the political space as Napo, stated these when he delivered a keynote note address at the 2026 Busia Institute.

Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh (Napo) speaking at the event

He spoke on the topic “THE GOVERNANCE OF GHANA’S SECOND REPUBLIC CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE FOR DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT”.

The lecture, which was held on Sunday, 9th August, 2026, at London Hilton on Park Lane22 Park Lane, London W1K 1BE, United Kingdom was on the General Theme: “Centre-Right Political Thought in Africa: The Ghanaian Experience”.

Napo, who is also the former Education Minister and former Member of Parliament (MP) for Manhyia South, observed that UP tradition has earned its enduring place in Ghana’s constitutional history through its defence of liberty, of pluralism, of parliamentary government, of private initiative, of social responsibility, and of the dignity of the individual.

“But an inheritance is not a monument to be dusted. Its obligation to us is not that we preserve it in memory.Its obligation is that we renew it; in our policy, in our conduct, in our service, “he urged.

Adding that “that is the charge I leave with this room. We must study our history honestly enough to name its wounds. We must defend its good name responsibly enough to deserve it.

Napo, as he’s affectionately called, continued that
“And we (NPP members) must apply its principles intelligently enough to meet the conditions of our own time, for fidelity has never required the denial of difficulty. It requires only confidence in the enduring principles by which difficulty is understood and, in the end, overcome.According to him, a brief tenure did not make this republic small.

He recounted that the soldiers who suspended the Constitution could not kill the constitutional idea. The interruption of its programmes could not erase its devotion to the countryside.
And its faith in the dignity of the ordinary human being still has the power to instruct governments standing very far from 1969, including, if we are honest and if we are worthy, our own. Let us then ensure that the generations coming after us meet this administration neither through caricature nor through nostalgia, but through evidence, through proportion, and through gratitude”,he charged participants and the rank and file of NPP.

Adding that “let them find a government that accepted office at a hard hour that tried to reconcile freedom with welfare, that chose the neglected countryside as a field of national justice, and that looked hard economic truth in the face without ever abandoning the constitutional order.

That is a heritage worthy of informed admiration. It is a legacy worthy of preservation. And it is now the continuing responsibility of the New Patriotic Party, and of every one of us who claims to stand within the UP tradition.

May this lecture deepen our understanding, strengthen our fidelity to constitutional government, and renew our commitment to a Ghana governed by law, developed through enterprise and social responsibility, and united around the dignity of all its people.”

Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh pointed out that the Second Republic should never be remembered as a mere entry in a chronology, a government inaugurated in October 1969 and disposed of in January 1972.

He said it should be remembered for what it actually attempted: to rebuild constitutional government after the concentration of power; to place institutions above personality; to marry freedom to social responsibility; to make the rural citizen an equal citizen; and to measure every public act against a single standard, the dignity of the human person.

He recounted that it inherited an economy already breaking under debts and dependence accumulated over many years. He said its remedies caused real hardship. Its judgements drew real controversy.

Its execution was, at times, imperfect. But, and hold both halves of this sentence together, for the whole of my argument tonight lives in the space between them; none of that establishes bad faith. All of it reveals the brutal conditions under which a young democracy was trying, honestly, to govern well.”

The speech is attached below;

2026 BUSIA INSTITUTE LECTURE. DELIVERED BY_ DR. MATTHEW OPOKU PREMPEH. A