Chronicle -- MR. JAKE Obetsebi Lamptey has said he had literally relinquished his position as the campaign manager of President Kufuor and the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the upcoming general elections to former President Jerry John Rawlings, the founder of the National Democratic Congress (NDC). The NPP explained that he arrived at the decision to give up his position to the NDC founder after he had realized that anytime the former president talked on any issue relating to the current political dispensation, he ended up getting more people to join the NPP than any political strategy of the NPP could achieve.

?I want to tell you today that Jerry Rawlings is now the campaign manager of the NPP. I say this because anytime he opens his mouth he draws a lot of prospective voters into the NPP. This happens because his comments get a lot of people convinced that Prof.

Mills is just a puppet candidate of the NDC as we have been saying,? he told a political gathering of students at the University of Ghana- Legon, last Thursday evening.

Jake who is also the Minister of Tourism and Modernization of the Capital City said the former President had been accusing officials of the NPP of lying about him and Professor Mills and noted that Mr. Rawlings and his NDC cohorts made the allegations without being able to tell the people the exact things that the NPP had said about them which constituted lies.

?When I quote the words of the former President who once said he was so poor at the time he made his coup to become the leader of this country, that he had to furnish his room with chairs from a military helicopter, and that at a point he had to buy gari and beans meal on credit, the former president says I am telling lies about him and his cronies accuse me of hitting below the belt. I begin wondering whether I was the one who put those words in his mouth at the time,? the NPP campaign manager stated.

The minister advised that Mr. Rawlings would have done the NDC and its Presidential Candidate a lot of good if he had stayed away from the campaign activities of the party he founded.

Such an attitude, in the opinion of the NPP campaign strategist, would have allowed Ghanaians to really assess Prof. Mills to ascertain whether he was indeed his own man and would not in any way succumb to any manipulative antics of Mr. Rawlings if he were to win the upcoming elections.

Describing Prof. Mills as the surrogate candidate of the umbrella party, he accused the NDC flag bearer of preaching virtue but practicing vice. He explained to the ecstatic university students that Prof. Mills had been boasting of being a man of peace but had, since his political career, failed to demonstrate his adherence to peace

?Here is a man who was vice president of this country for four years. He worked at the Castle for the four years as the vice president.

Just at the entrance of the Castle, there was this illegal detention cell where people were illegally detained and given routine identification haircuts. All that while, Prof. Mills drove to the castle everyday and despite being a professor of law and a man of peace as he claims to be, he could not speak against this illegality and human rights violations.

?How can he turn round to tell us today that he is a man of peace just because he is not in power?? the NPP kingpin wondered.

According to him, the NDC flag bearer again failed to demonstrate that he was a man of peace during the NDC presidential-candidate elections when supporters of his opponent, Kwesi Botchwey, were beaten up to the extent that one of them had to resign from parliament, adding, ?he kept quiet over the matter and happily became the beneficiary of that violence.?

He said President Kufuor had, since the four years of his leadership, demonstrated that he was someone who respected himself and more especially, the people of Ghana.

The president, he said, had proven that he was totally committed to the overall development of the nation and more accessible to the citizenry than any president had ever been.

The NPP campaign manager told the students that the NDC had nothing good in its fold to deserve the mandate of the good people of this country and therefore urged them to vote massively for President Kufuor and the NPP?s parliamentary candidates in the December 7 polls to ensure the forward march of the nation.