The Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, last Saturday, robustly responded to the tantrums of key and influential members of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) who say the 2012 elections would be a contest of character and achievements between him and incumbent President Atta Mills.

Nana Akufo-Addo welcomed a clean challenge and dared President Mills and the NDC “to bring it on”.

Addressing an enthusiastic and mammoth crowd at a rally held at Mantse Agbonaa in the heart of Accra, the main opposition leader said it beat his imagination why President Mills and his advisors had decided not to campaign on his (Mills’s) public record and performance but rather “to attack me and blacken my name and reputation in this country”.

Nana Addo said, “I have news for the President; I have news for his so-called advisors, no amount of vilification, no amount of insults, no amount of fabrication, no concoctions against me is going to stop me from doing my work for the people of our country and for the progress of our nation. Nothing is going to stop me…Again, let me repeat that, no amount of insults, lies or propaganda, no amount of threats directed at my person are going to stop me. ”

For him, “They (NDC) are right to say they cannot campaign on his (Mills’s) record and performance (because) the record is poor and the performance is weak and that is why they cannot campaign on that record and on that performance.”

He said President Mills and his NDC administration had nothing to show despite being fortunate to have assumed the reins of governance at the time the country was booming with oil, highest cocoa and gold prices in history as well as high taxes.

He wondered where all the money had gone to.

‘Na sika no wohin’

“Within three years,” Nana said, “the NDC had doubled the national debt with billions and billions and billions of dollars” and asked the million dollar question, “na sika no wohin”, meaning ‘but where is the money?’

Touting the NPP as the most united political force in the country today, Nana Addo pledged the NPP’s commitment to the country’s men and women capable of giving Ghana first class governance and administration since “our party has a programme for the rapid economic and social transformation of our nation”.

He said, “We are no longer going to be producers of raw materials in Ghana; that stage in the history of our country is over when the NPP comes to power on 7th January next year by God’s grace.”

Instead, the flagbearer of the largest opposition party in the country said, “We are now going to make a new industrial economy for Ghana; one that can create jobs for our young people, one that can bring better wages and higher incomes for our people.”

According to him, the ‘listening tour’ offered him the opportunity to learn at first-hand the problems Ghanaians were going through, especially in the rural areas which the incumbent government had turned a blind eye to.

He pledged his commitment to rescue Ghanaians from the hands of the NDC administration and the shackles of untold hardship as a result of poor governance.

“The issues confronting our country, businesses that are struggling to survive, young people who have no jobs to do, high cost of education and widespread corruption in our country; these are the issues of our country,” he noted.

That notwithstanding, he said, when President Mills went to address Parliament last Thursday in his state-of-the-nation’s address, he was unable to talk about any of these issues “because he is no longer in touch with the concerns of the ordinary Ghanaian”.

“President Mills told us in Parliament …that last year witnessed the biggest growth in our GDP in history; 14.3%. What he didn’t tell us was that all of that was due to the oil that (ex-president) Kufuor discovered and the first time those receipts have come in to the national accounts. That is what is responsible for this growth. It’s not some better management of the economy…He said Agriculture has done well, but his Minister of Finance (Dr Kwabena Duffour) came to tell us in the Budget in November that agric has not been able to meet its target. Who is telling the truth? The Minister or the President,” Nana Addo asked.

Who Is In Charge? “But then, this is where we’re in Ghana today. You never know when you hear from government who is doing what, who is in charge of what! Our president, we are told, attempted twice to stop a (Woyome) payment, but with all his power and all his authority, could not stop the payment. Who is in charge of Ghana today? Who is in charge of our country today? Twice, not once…so the question is, who is in charge of our country today?” Nana Akufo-Addo quizzed.

Nana Addo emphasised his dislike for violence, saying, “I have never supported the use of violence in politics; not one single day have I been involved in anything to do with violence; but one thing that I have always stood for, I will never sit down to allow my fellow human being to cheat me.”

Free SHS

“But not too long from now, we in the NPP have plans to end this untold hardship, our manifesto will show ways by which we will create jobs in this country for the youth to get something to do, devise ways to make education easy for Ghanaians and let me say again that given the mandate to lead this country, secondary school education is going to be free for all the people of Ghana,” he said to a thunderous applause from the cheering crowd.

The flagbearer emphasized that “we are not going to allow education to be a privilege only for the rich; education is a right to every citizen of this country to be able to improve themselves and get the opportunity to go forward in life.”

Nana Akufo-Addo said those who thought free secondary education could not be achieved because of inadequate resources were living in a dream land, saying that the GH¢51.2million paid to NDC financier, Alfred Woyome, for no work done could have been used to start it.

Mammoth Crowd

Former President John Agyekum Kufuor could not believe the numbers that had gathered there as though elections were to be held the following day.

“I’m telling you that what we are seeing here today is only a representation of what you will see everywhere in Ghana from the South to the North, East to the West…” he stated, adding, “It is so because Ghanaians are looking for quality leadership; leadership that will take them from the wretchedness and misery in which they find themselves now.”

He believed President Mills and the NDC administration had proved over the last three years since they assumed the reins of governance that they had no solutions to the myriad of problems confronting the nation.

Woyome Scandal

Mr Kufuor said he could never understand the payment of GH¢51.2 million to the self-acclaimed NDC financier under the pretext of a supposed judgment debt, though the man himself admitted to not having a contract with the State.

“We are not a country of backward people; Ghanaians are very clever, they know that the incoming NPP administration would correct these defects in a very short time.”

He urged Ghanaians to vote for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the NPP come December 2012.