WHAT WAS supposed to be a meeting with staff and students of the Wa campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) turned into a mini rally during a visit by Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur.

But things went quickly downhill when the vice president who seemed confused, only managed to say a few words in the hall packed with students whose numbers keep dwindling due to his poor showing.

He was of the view that having served as deputy finance minister, teacher and governor of the Bank of Ghana, he was well placed above anybody else to be vice president citing his signature on the national currency as his trump card. “My ability is very good,” he said.

He declared that the quest of the university for infrastructure projects was a hand go hand come situation – “Vote for John Mahama or forget about your roads being tarred,” he said reminding the students to show their gratitude to the PNDC for establishing the university by voting for the ruling government.

After his lackluster eight-minute delivery, the vice president’s media liaison officers literally had to plead with journalists to allegedly write a good report about the event with the excuse that he was ill-prepared for the event having attended a number of assignments that day.

Vice President Arthur’s five day tour of the Upper West, Upper East and Northern regions was supposed to counteract campaign messages of his opponent in the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s but he ended up giving a rather poor delivery.

Meanwhile, Dr. Bawumia’s popularity continues to soar in the regions after addressing students of the same campus with the pledge of better management of the economy under an NPP government.

In response to criticisms of being theoretical in his analysis of the economy, he advised the students to take their studies seriously saying a poor theoretical foundation will affect their appreciation of practical issues.

He linked the poor management of Ghana’s economy to the weak theoretical prowess of its managers and consequently advised them to chart a new path.

He reminded the students that the Kufuor administration inherited a HIPC economy and delivered a middle-income one without oil but the country with its present oil status was ill performing in view of poor management and policies.

To this end, he charged the students to vote massively for the NPP and help police ballot boxes on election day pledging that in 2013 Ghanaians will witness a modernization of the economy.

Touching on the free SHS policy, he said the country could not afford to ignore the alarming rate at which functional illiteracy was growing stressing that free senior high school was the only way to ensure social mobility.

On industrialization, he noted the NPP was going revise the import duty regime to allow the reduction imports of industrial raw materials and re-develop the ports to make Ghana the industrial hub of the sub-region.