The NPP flagbearer for 2008 elections, Nana Akufo-Addo has urged delegates to 27th congress to add to the NPP's democratic credentials by pulling off a peaceful and successful congress.

Below is his entire statement:

Fellow members and delegates of the New Patriotic Party, this weekend marks an important watershed in the history and future of our great Party.

Historic because, for the first time at our Party’s National Delegates’ Conference, over three times the number of delegates who gathered at the University of Ghana on December 17, 2005 to elect national officers for the Party, will gather at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi this Saturday. No other party in our country has been anywhere near as bold in extending power to its rank and file.

Our task in Kumasi on February 27, 2010, is simple but critical: to choose a new team of capable national officers who will lead us, as a united force, to recapture power in the 2012 general elections. The NPP rank and file deserve a new leadership which will provide, with urgency, a clear and credible strategic plan for achieving this purpose.

The Party’s reflections on the 2008 defeat have resulted in the far-reaching constitutional amendments of August 22, 2009, which were supported by a great majority of the membership and which have given greater powers to the grassroots of the Party. We are almost through with the process of reorganisation.

To that end, we are grateful to the outgoing Peter Mac Manu-led team and all the immediate-past Party executives across the country for the overwhelming success with which they oversaw the difficult process of electing some 115,650 Party officers, including the 105,000 polling station officers in some 21,000 polling stations, 5,400 electoral area coordinators, 3680 constituency officers and 160 regional officers nationwide. In all, we have held nearly 22,000 democratic elections in the last six months across the length and breadth of Ghana. This is unprecedented in the history of our country.

In spite of the challenges, the high level of participation, energy, zeal and camaraderie that these series of expanded elections generated among our party activists across the country should leave the nation in no doubt that the NPP is coming back – stronger, more united, with a highly motivated grassroots organisation.

I respectfully appeal to all delegates to vote for candidates who can do the job and give us a winning team which can collectively enhance the image and fortunes of the Party in every region of the land. This places on you, the delegates, a strategic responsibility to ensure that the composition of our new team of national officers will reflect our image and status as a truly national party.

In the well-known spirit of our Party’s democratic credentials, let us have peaceful, free and fair elections. All well-meaning party members wish to see the successes that we saw in the Regional Delegates’ Conferences repeated at this weekend’s National Delegates’ Conference. And, further, that, in line with our tradition, both winners and losers come together after the elections to promote the unity and fortunes of our Party. We expect from the new team two things: ensuring the unity of the Party and leading us to victory in 2012.

As the Mills-led NDC administration continues to fumble and fail, the Ghanaian people are looking to us, in the NPP, to provide a clear, strong alternative to delivering them from increasing hardships and hopelessness. We must, therefore, conduct ourselves accordingly in a winsome manner.

Once again, I wish to congratulate all the new party officers from the polling stations, electoral areas, through the constituencies to the regions and wish them the very best. And, I also commend all former executives across the country for their service and dedication to the cause of the Party over the years. I reiterate my appeal to them to stay engaged in the activities of the Party.

History beckons us in the NPP. Let us be up and doing.

May God bless our Party, our country, Ghana, and us all.

Signed Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo