Opinions of Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Columnist: Sayibu, Akilu

You Can't Win Elections With Insults And Filthy Arrogance

After Dr Mahamud Bawumia delivered the 5th Ferdinand Ayim Memorial lectures on the State of the Economy during which he cleverly gave reasons to buttress all his points about the state of the economy, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) broke loose in their reaction!

Not only did they decide to resort to insults as the best way to react to the issues which were raised by the renowned economists who is also the running mate to Nana Akuffo Addo for election 2012, they also incriminated some personalities and organizations who decided to understand Dr. Bawumia’s lecture in their own way and language.

The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) decided to claim that, Dr. Bawumia had doubted their competence and integrity which was NEVER the case. They organized a press briefing to “react” to an issue which in my view needed no reaction at all. What the GSS which is supposed to be an independent body did was to state exactly what NDC communicators have been saying since the lecture was delivered-the question to ask now is that, is the GSS now also the communication wing of the NDC?

The NDC must be told that, Ghanaians are now very awake and can tell a sick horse by the look. Ghanaians are aware that, the NDC has no clue on how to solve the basic problems confronting the very people who gave them the mandate to rule.

There is nowhere on this earth that filthy insults and open arrogance can win anybody elections. The NDC must be told that, the very people they are busily insulting and treating with disdain are waiting for them in front of the ballot boxes on December 7.

Even if Dr. Bawumia had not made the disclosures he made about the budget and the so called single inflation, the open market has already told Ghanaians the truth.

President Mills must be asked how much was a ball of kenkey when he was campaigning to be present and how much did he buy it when he drove with the presidential convoy to the Nima market the other day to buy the kenkey he bought? There are real problems facing the country over 50years after independence that president Mills must address than allowing his boys to be rubble rousing everywhere. Our graduates have do jobs that is what they want. There is under development everywhere in the country with hardships getting excruciating. What is president Mills and his NDC doing about this?

Parents cannot pay their wards school and medical bills without sleepless nights what are you doing about it president Mills?

When are you returning the Woyomi money to the tax payer for development projects? Are you ever going to introduce the one term premium for the NHIS? What about SADA? These are issues president Mills and his NDC must find solutions to and stop the “insultics” that they are currently subjecting Ghanaians to.

There is now the golden opportunity for Ghanaians to decide between two regimes; one regime known as the NPP brought into Ghana lots of social intervention programmes including, the National Youth in Employment programme (NYEP), the National Health Insurance Scheme(NHIS), the Capitation grant, the School feeding programme (SFP) among other social interventions.

The other party known as the NDC promised to introduce one term premium to the NHIS but fail? Promised to fight corruption but ended up paying huge sums of money to their best friends including Alfred Agbesi Woyomi. They said they were to fight cocaine but ended up having cocaine turned into something else. Forty percent of their appointments were to go to women but they failed. Farming and businesses have collapsed under their noise and the promise to create employment for tertiary graduates rather saw the creation of unemployed graduates association.

With these to compare and contrast, it is my fervent view that Ghanaians will on the 7th December 2012 give the right to rule once again to the NPP; the party which made basic education free and has now promised to make Secondary Education free in the country so that, the poor can also have education at least to the SHS level. But for us to win we must all pull together.

AKILU SAYIBU. The writer is the NPP parliamentary candidate for Tamale-North. His email address is Akilu.sayibu@live.uwe.ac.uk