Jennifer Oforiwaah Queen — widely known as Jennifer Queen — is one of the New Patriotic Party’s most recognizable communicators, serving as Deputy Director of Communications for the NPP.
For years, she has been a fixture in Ghana’s political media landscape: defending the party on air, challenging opponents, and weighing in on national debates ranging from illegal mining (galamsey) and economic hardship to local food consumption and party cohesion. Her style is bold, direct, and unapologetic — though notably, those who follow her closely point out that she argues her corner without resorting to vulgarity.
Queen’s political journey spans more than two and a half decades — a long road that rarely makes headlines compared to her more combative exchanges with figures like Hopeson Adorye, and some chiefs and public officials.
Her work on the NPP’s communications team was instrumental during the party’s successful 2016 election campaign. That contribution was formally recognized in January 2018, when President Akufo-Addo appointed her Deputy National Communications Director of NADMO (National Disaster Management Organisation) — an acknowledgment of the role she played in helping return the NPP to power.
She has since remained a consistent and vocal presence in the party’s opposition messaging, including through the NPP’s presidential primaries and its activities following the 2024 elections.
The Story She Rarely Tells:
Behind the sharp political commentary is a personal story that reveals the depth of conviction underneath. In August 2023, during a public appearance, Queen shared a childhood memory to make a pointed argument against calls for military coups or any form of political instability in Ghana.
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She took listeners back to 1990 — a period of public unrest tied to the era of Jerry John Rawlings, who had seized power in a 1981 coup and was navigating a tense transition toward multiparty democracy. Queen was a child in Kumasi at the time. Her mother, a nurse, ran a market stall, and Queen had one of her younger twin siblings — Kakra — strapped to her back. When tear gas was fired into the crowd, panic erupted. People scattered in every direction. In the chaos, a trotro (minibus) conductor slammed a car door — catching Queen’s hand and severely injuring it. She had stretched out her arm instinctively to shield her sibling from harm.
She described it plainly:
“My right hand — whenever I meet you, I will show it to you. I used my hand to save my sibling Kakra. If not, she would have been dead by now.”
She carried the scar. Kakra survived.
Queen didn’t share this story for sympathy. She shared it as a warning. Her argument was direct: political instability is not an abstraction. It lands in markets, on the backs of children, in the hands of ordinary families trying to get through the day. Ghana’s democratic stability, she contended, was hard-won and should not be gambled away by those romanticizing coups or chaos.
It is a rare window into what drives one of the NPP’s most tenacious voices — and a reminder that the most firmly held political convictions are often rooted not in ideology, but in lived experience.