Elvis Osei Mensah Dapaah

Elvis Osei Mensah Dapaah is a Ghanaian agriculturist and the New Patriotic Party Member of Parliament for Ahafo Ano South West in the Ashanti Region. He was born on 8 May 1992 at Abesewa and comes from Kunsu in the same district. He won his seat by just 140 votes, and only after a court-ordered re-collation that took two weeks to settle.

Education

Dapaah studied at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi and graduated with a BSc in Agriculture. The degree suits the place he represents: Ahafo Ano South West is a farming district of cocoa, food crops and small towns, where most households depend on the land.

Party work before Parliament

He came up through the constituency branch of the NPP, where he served as constituency finance secretary. When he launched his bid for the parliamentary ticket in November 2023, he told Kumasi's Kessben media that he wanted to raise the party's winning margin in the seat from about 2,000 votes to 10,000. He said he had already been funding small projects across the district before holding any office. He won the primary and became the NPP candidate for 2024.

The 140-vote seat

The December 2024 election went the other way from his prediction. Instead of growing, the NPP margin almost vanished as the party lost ground across the country. Collation of the Ahafo Ano South West results broke down amid disputes over irregularities, and the constituency became one of nine whose results were not declared on time.

The High Court ordered the Electoral Commission to re-collate the results. On 21 December 2024, at the EC's Greater Accra office, officials confirmed Dapaah as the winner with 16,680 votes against 16,540 for Sedik Abubakar of the National Democratic Congress. It was one of the closest parliamentary results of the election. He was sworn in on 7 January 2025, aged 32, among the youngest members of the Ninth Parliament.

In the House

Dapaah is Vice Chair of the Chieftaincy, Culture and Religious Affairs Committee and also sits on the Local Government and Rural Development Committee and the Human Rights Committee. He made his maiden speech on 18 June 2025. Clips of it spread widely online, with some viewers mocking his delivery. Mahama Ayariga, the Majority Leader, praised him from the floor for his courage, pointing out that many MPs go a whole term without speaking, and encouraged other first-timers to follow his example.

What comes next

With a majority of 140, Ahafo Ano South West is now one of the most marginal seats in Ghana. That makes his constituency work, especially on roads, farm support and jobs for young people, the main measure of whether he keeps it in 2028.