From education to energy, the development argument NAPO took to Coventry

Ghana’s political discourse has been dominated by a succession of compelling headlines. Following the New Patriotic Party’s National Delegates Conference, where Kojo Bamba emerged as one of the biggest talking points after his election as First National Vice Chairman, public attention has also turned to the bail granted to Salomey Awiti Baffoe and the growing controversy surrounding the 2026 World Cup visa arrangements, with Old Tafo MP Ekow Vincent Assafuah raising fresh questions about alleged misrepresentation of individuals to the United States Embassy.

Yet, amid these unfolding political and public-interest stories, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh, popularly known as NAPO, has returned to the news for a rather different reason. On 7 October 2026, he mounted the podium at Coventry University in the United Kingdom to deliver a public lecture on Education, Energy and Sustainable Development: Preparing Future Leaders for Africa’s Transformation.

It was a welcome return to an intellectual setting for a man whose experience spans education, energy and national political leadership. His appearance was particularly noteworthy because it followed his engagement with students at the University of Ghana in June and his keynote address at the Busia Institute Lecture in London in August. But the implication of Coventry lies beyond the invitation, the platform or the personality. The real question is whether the ideas he presented deserve a more serious place in Ghana’s national conversation.

It is my observation, that the most compelling feature of NAPO’s Coventry lecture is the central argument around which he constructs his case: education, energy and sustainable development cannot be treated as separate policy concerns.

They are interconnected conditions for national transformation. It is a deceptively simple proposition, but one with profound implications for how African governments formulate policy, allocate resources and measure progress. Consider his illustration of a child in a rural Ghanaian community. The child needs electricity to study after dark.

The school needs power to teach science and operate computers. Teachers need an enabling environment to remain in underserved communities. What appears, at first, to be an educational challenge may therefore have its roots in inadequate energy infrastructure.

The quality of education, in turn, affects the skills available to industry, the productivity of the economy and the country's capacity to sustain development. This is where NAPO’s argument becomes particularly instructive. Development cannot be achieved by pursuing worthy objectives in isolation.

A country may expand access to education, but if its economy cannot productively absorb the graduates it produces, the benefits of that investment remain constrained. It may generate more electricity, but if the power does not support manufacturing, agriculture, enterprise and job creation, the economic transformation expected from that investment may never materialise.

The challenge, therefore, is to make policy work as a connected system. That argument carries particular weight when examined against NAPO’s experience as Minister for Education.

In his address, he revisits the implementation of Free Senior High School and the difficult decisions that accompanied the expansion of access. The arrival of more students placed considerable pressure on existing classrooms, dormitories and other facilities.

The introduction of the double-track system became one of the government's responses to those constraints, attracting criticism while enabling more students to be accommodated within existing infrastructure.

One may debate the policy choices, their execution and their long-term consequences. Indeed, serious policy analysis demands that we do so. But there is a larger lesson in the experience NAPO presents: announcing a policy is different from implementing it, and implementation is different from ensuring that the policy delivers lasting results.

This distinction is fundamental to governance in Ghana. Our national discourse often rewards announcements, launches and political declarations. Yet the citizen's experience is determined by what happens after the announcement. Does the school have the facilities to support learning? Does the graduate acquire skills that the economy needs? Does public expenditure produce measurable improvements in people's lives?

NAPO’s discussion of education also challenges the tendency to measure progress principally by enrolment figures and certificates. His argument is that education must develop capability. If Ghana intends to industrialise, modernise agriculture and participate meaningfully in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, renewable energy and advanced manufacturing, its educational system must prepare people for those opportunities.

This is a particularly important point for a country in which many young people invest years in formal education only to encounter limited opportunities to apply their knowledge productively. The answer cannot be to diminish the value of academic education. It is to strengthen the relationship between what we teach, the skills we develop and the economy we seek to build. Education must prepare people to create value, solve problems and adapt to changing circumstances. Otherwise, the certificate risks becoming evidence of time spent in school rather than proof of capability.

The former Energy Minister and running mate of the New Patriotic Party’s flagbearer, H.E Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia approaches the next part of his argument from a similarly practical perspective. Electricity, he contends, should not be understood simply in terms of whether the lights are on. Its greater significance lies in what it enables society to accomplish. Reliable energy can support factories, improve agricultural processing, preserve medicines, strengthen healthcare delivery and enable digital businesses to operate competitively.

But the existence of energy resources does not automatically produce these outcomes. They require investment, appropriate regulation, technical expertise, effective institutions and leadership capable of coordinating the various actors involved. In other words, resources create possibilities; institutions and people determine what becomes of them.

This is one of the most valuable propositions in the lecture because it challenges a persistent weakness in the way African development is discussed. We frequently celebrate the resources our countries possess without sufficiently interrogating our capacity to convert them into domestic productive value. Natural resources can generate revenue, yet leave local industries underdeveloped.

Universities can produce graduates, yet fail to connect them to productive employment. Electricity generation can increase, yet businesses may still struggle with the cost and reliability of power. NAPO extends this argument to sustainable development, insisting that Africa must reject the false choice between economic progress and environmental responsibility. His position is that the continent needs industrialisation, affordable electricity, investment and jobs, while retaining the capacity to protect the environmental foundations on which future prosperity depends.

He also challenges the fairness of a global energy transition in which African countries are expected to pursue cleaner development despite having contributed comparatively little to the historical accumulation of greenhouse-gas emissions. He argues for fair financing, access to technology and the development of African manufacturing capacity, while maintaining that energy security must not be sacrificed in the pursuit of environmental objectives. These are important questions, particularly for a continent whose development aspirations cannot be detached from the realities of energy poverty, industrial competitiveness and climate vulnerability.

However, the strength of this argument lies in its demand for practical solutions, not in treating every proposed position as beyond scrutiny. Africa must examine the costs, benefits and long-term implications of its energy choices with intellectual honesty. The objective should be a transition that is economically viable, environmentally responsible and capable of expanding opportunity for African citizens.

That brings us to what may be the most consequential part of the Coventry lecture: leadership and institutions. NAPO argues that good ideas are insufficient when the institutions responsible for implementing them lack the capacity to deliver. He draws attention to the need for capable teams, sound judgement, institutional memory and systems that can continue functioning beyond the tenure of individual officeholders. His formulation is worth reflecting upon: one of the important measures of leadership is what continues to work after a leader leaves office. This is a standard that Ghanaian public life would benefit from applying more consistently. We must move beyond assessing leaders solely by their speeches, political popularity or ability to announce ambitious programmes. We must also ask whether they strengthen institutions, improve implementation, preserve knowledge and establish systems capable of enduring political transitions.

A country cannot build sustainable development around personalities alone. It needs institutions that can learn, adapt and deliver, regardless of who occupies the highest office. There is, however, a reason to examine NAPO’s lecture beyond the immediate political context in which it was delivered. His argument invites us to consider leadership as a process of connecting ideas, people, resources and institutions to achieve practical outcomes. That perspective is relevant to Ghana's political class, public servants, academics, entrepreneurs and the young people who will inherit the consequences of today's decisions.

It also offers a useful framework for assessing the country's political traditions. The ultimate value of any political tradition cannot rest on its historical reputation or electoral victories alone. It must be demonstrated through its capacity to develop people, create productive opportunities, strengthen institutions and improve the quality of life.

The lecture's closing question captures this responsibility with admirable clarity: What problem will you solve? It is a question directed at students, but its reach extends far beyond the university campus. It challenges politicians to look beyond the pursuit of office, public institutions to look beyond routine administration, and young professionals to look beyond the acquisition of qualifications. It asks each of them to identify a problem and contribute meaningfully to its solution.

For NAPO, the invitation to Coventry provided a platform to bring his experience in education and energy into a wider discussion about Africa's future. For those willing to engage seriously with the substance of his address, it provides an opportunity to examine the relationship between policy, productivity and institutional performance.

The task now is to move the conversation from the lecture hall into the national policy space. Ghana needs an education system that develops capability, an energy sector that supports productivity, an economy that creates opportunities, and institutions capable of sustaining progress beyond electoral cycles. NAPO’s Coventry address offers a useful starting point for that conversation. Its greatest contribution will be measured, however, by the extent to which its ideas are tested, debated and translated into practical solutions.

 Africa does not lack potential. The more difficult question is whether we can organise that potential into lasting progress.

And perhaps that is the enduring value of the Coventry lecture: it prompts us that the future will not be secured by resources, qualifications or political ambition alone. It will be secured by the quality of our ideas, the competence of our institutions and our willingness to solve the problems that stand between potential and prosperity.

The writer, Gideon Kwasi Annor, is a political thinker

annorgideonkwasi@gmail.com

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