Accra, Oct. 29, GNA - Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng, Heart Surgeon and former Chief Executive Officer of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, on Sunday said given the chance to lead NPP to Election 2008 as the flag bearer, would be a good omen for the party.

He said: "We do not need to enter the electoral battle field with a lot of baggage to defend, that would mean arming our political opponents with ammunition to defeat us at the Presidential and Parliamentary elections".

The Heart Surgeon appealed to delegates to the party's Special

National Delegates Congress in December 22, to avoid the mistake

of electing any other candidate, apart from Professor Kwabena

Frimpong-Boateng. Speaking to newsmen in Accra, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said he

represented the new face of politicking in the country, criteria

needed to attract floating voters and vital for winning Election

2008. He asked the NPP delegates to give him the mandate to

transform the nation, and set the country on the path of economic

independence and emancipation. The NPP Flag bearer aspirant tasked the delegates: "The power

for total freedom is in your hands use it wisely by electing Prof

Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng as the flag bearer of NPP for Election

2008". On the economy, Prof. Frimpong-Boateng reiterated his

concern about Ghana's continuous dependence on the

international community for basic facilities "we depend on the

outside world to resource our institutions". He said, "It is unacceptable that after 50 years of nationhood,

about 80 per cent of inputs into agriculture, education and health

are from foreign sources". "We cannot resource our institutions because we are not

creating enough wealth. We are not creating wealth because it is

taking us too long to change the structure of the national economy

from a heavily dependent on the export of raw materials to the

export of knowledge and technology". "Our world is essentially driven by technology. Energy,

agriculture, medicine and health, clean air and water,

transportation, sanitation, management use and conservation of

natural resources - all are based ultimately on science and

technology," he added. The Heart Surgeon stressed the need for Ghana to focus on

science and technological advancement for national development. He explained that every country's development depended on its

ability to understand, interpret, select, adapt, use, transmit,

diffuse, produce and commercialise scientific and technological

knowledge in a manner appropriate to its culture, aspirations and

level of development. Prof. Frimpong-Boateng noted that the poverty gap was a

technological gap stressing that: "The categorisation of nations into

advanced and developing is based on their scientific

advancement". "Low income levels go with low scientific and technological

status, while high income levels correspond with high scientific and

technological programme". He said he wants to be President in order to address challenges

resulting from problems associated with increase in the population

size and complexity of the society. Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said in modern, affluent and complex

societies, institutions, which made the population to survive and

thrive, needed the proper leadership for their effective

maintenance. Thus schools, hospitals, markets, industries, law enforcement

agencies, political authority and many others more or less assumed

the status of basic necessities, the collapse of which would lead to

the breakdown of the whole society, he said.

"I am therefore, into politics to fix it all. I have done it before and I have the capacity to mend the nation. There is, therefore, no denying the fact that the quality of leadership that I would offer would directly influence the success of the country", he stressed.