Accra, May, 17, GNA - Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, NPP Presidential Aspirant on Friday night urged Ghanaians to strive to build a nation where role-modelling was the preferred option rather than envy. He said envy was a psychological part affecting most people in the society and that needed to be defeated so that self-advancement of an individual would not induce the proverbial "skin pain."

Nana Akufo-Addo was speaking at the second of a series of the Ferdinand Ayim Memorial Lectures on the theme: "I believe in Ghana." It was organized by the Ayim Foundation to help preserve the memory of the late Ferdinand Ofori Ayim, special assistant to former Minister of Tourism and Diasporan Relations, Mr Jake Obetsebi Lamptey and sustain a fund which is used to support his wife and four children.

The late Ferdinand Ayim died in April 2006, while travelling to Atibie-Kwahu in the Eastern Region to prepare for the Hang and Paragliding Festival.

The lecture, which was chaired by Mrs. Gifty Afenyi-Dadzie, a member of the Council of State, brought together dignitaries, including Ministers of state, party faithful and sympathizers, as well as people from the corporate world who together raised funds for the Foundation. Nana Akufo-Addo said: "We have survived the era when long-standing commercial ties, private institutions, companies, factories disappeared through envy," and added that it was time to draw a line between our painful past and the exciting future.

Commenting on the pockets of conflicts in some parts of the country, he said the best way forward to seek justice and reconciliation was to find accommodation for opposing views, forgiving old wrong and working together to build the collective better and more fulfilling future.

"As citizens of Ghana we have a responsibility to our past, our present and future to seal our belief in the country."

Nana Akufo-Addo expressed his readiness to take up the mantle of leadership of Ghana. "It is time to wage relentless war against poverty in our minds, against the mentality of impoverishment, against our negative attitudes, our fears and fatigue."

"Strong democracies were built by strengthening institutions of democracy, rather than the power of men and the state and its people must show a far greater commitment than we have done so far in making our rules and regulations work if we are to make the development leap we crave for as a nation."

"In order to make that tricky leap from the so called third world subsistence to the first world satisfaction we must begin to believe strongly in Ghana and in our own capacity to deliver beyond what we have been prejudged to be our earthly boundaries of achievements," Nana Akufo-Addo said.

The NPP Presidential candidate urged people to vote for him in the coming December elections, saying Ghana had reached a crossroad where Ghanaians must accept his transformational leadership.

In a tribute to the late Ferdinand Ayim, Nana Akufo-Addo said the paragliding festival which he helped to introduce should be seen as a symbol of limitlessness of how far a Ghanaian could reach the top. "The thought of a teenager from Abetifi, jumping from the Kwahu escarpment and gliding high and away would have been seen as very un-Ghanaian," he said.

He said as a nation, Ghanaians have every reason to believe in the potential for greatness of a country that had produced great people such as Yaa Asantewaa, Ephraim Amu, Esther Ocloo, E.T. Mensah, Azumah Nelson, Ama Ata Aidoo and many more in all spheres of human endeavour.

"We must believe in ourselves, we must believe in our fellow citizens, we must believe in Ghana, I believe in Ghana and I hope so you do," Nana Akufo-Addo said.