Accra - The Deputy Minister of Defence, Dr. Tony Aidoo, has given the opposition parties credit for making it impossible for the First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyeman Rawlings, to stand as the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) Presidential Candidate in the 2000 elections.

Dr. Aidoo, who is a close confidant of the First Couple, told the London based Ghana Review International (GRI) in an interview in London that "here the opposition has been more clever than us. They knew this could well be the case so they started the campaign more than four years ago, creating the situation that will discourage the First Lady from actually going on if she ever had any intention of standing."

Dr. Aidoo, who said if the First Lady was to contest, she would have won hands down, however conceded that even with Nana Konadu out of the race, the NDC would win the Presidential elections with an even wider margin then in 1996.

He asked: "What has the opposition got? They don't have the capacity to rule the country. They have a history of destruction and we have a history of building. For many years, I have taunted them to show me their manifesto but it hasn't come. Finally, they took the bait. About two months ago, they said they were going to produce a manifesto, you know what they produced? A re-production of something they produced in 1995 called the NPP alternative."

When the GRI pointed out to him that the New Patriotic Party (NPP) had not yet launched their manifesto, Dr. Aidoo insisted that his information from Accra indicated otherwise.

The interview, published in the April issue of the GRI, quoted Dr. Aidoo as having said: "I am praying to God that for the first time, they will have the courage and time to produce a manifesto, then we will go at it with a toothpick. Then for the first time, for the benefit of Ghanaians, we will be fighting an election on issues and not personalities and I think that will be good for democracy. But I don't think they will do it, which is a pity."

On the media, Dr. Aidoo described the situation where one finds "politicians masquerading as journalists" as "very bad for Ghana." He denied that the state media had been pro-government and cited columnists such as Professor Kwesi Yankah, who even though critical of government, wrote for 10 years in a state-owned paper as against the private newspapers which see nothing right with what the government does.

He revealed that to ensure that the other side was also heard, "don't forget, papers like The Chronicle, and The Independent operated for almost four years before finally, when the NDC couldn't take it anymore, it had to set up its own counterpoint papers, and that is The Democrat and The (Ghana) Palaver.

On his declaration that he would put his job on the line to ensure that the publisher of The Independent, Kabral Blay-Amihere, was prosecuted for sedition libel for an article published in January, 2000 in the paper, Dr. Aidoo denied that he was getting personal about the matter. He explained that Kabral's intention was to cause disaffection in the armed forces that would have led to a coup d'etat.

"I am doing it in terms of my responsibility. First, for the good conduct of security, second for the maintenance of the command and control structure alongside discipline, third in terms of the maintenance of peace and security in Ghana and fourthly, in terms of everybody's commitment to the provisions of the 1992 Constitution."

Dr. Aidoo said President Rawlings was not given the credit for a good work done, and that "the unfortunate situation for President Rawlings and for our country is that he burst onto the political scene unconstitutionally. His opponents do not want the rest of the country to forget the way and manner in which he came to power, irrespective of whatever good work he has done. So you have a situation where people go out to look for not the positive things about the man but the negative ones."