The 2012 presidential candidate of the People’s National Convention (PNC), Hassan Ayariga, has launched an unprovoked attack on the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, describing him as corrupt.
In what looks like a new wave of vitriolic onslaught, Ayariga went as far as dragging Nana Addo’s late father, onetime President of Ghana Edward Akufo-Addo, into the attack.
He left out the ruling party, which political observer’s believed that he was in bed with, and turned his guns on Akufo-Addo.
That was during a rent visit to the Eastern Regional capital, Koforidua, where the man, whose seeming coughing record during an IEA presidential debate earned him the nickname ‘Ayari-cough,’ sought to denigrate the NPP presidential candidate for 2016, justifying why he had not spared Akufo-Addo his constant vitriolic attacks before some PNC members.
In his attempt to catch votes from the potential delegates of the PNC, Ayariga first suggested that Akufo-Addo did not mean well with his promise to provide ‘free secondary education’ when elected president during the 2012 electioneering campaign.
“I am going to tell you three reasons why I attacked Akufo-Addo …because you have sent me to the war without guns and without ammunitions and I’m going to use my weapons to fight so let me use my weapons and tell you why I fought him,” was his prelude.
He then proceeded: “Number One; Akufo-Addo said that he was going to give us free education and for that matter Ghanaians should vote for him so that he will give us free education".
Ayariga told the gathering, most of who did not seem to be paying much attention to his address in view of his occasional appeals for them to pay attention and keep quiet and listen, that “I said Akufo-Addo even in my manifesto, it’s there …but the point is that I cannot build this house in one day and you’re telling me that you want to build it one day …no, it’s not possible.
His defence was that the late President Nkrumah gave the three northern regions free education” that means if you were a southerner living in the northern part of Ghana, you will have free education; if you are a northerner and you are living in the southern part, you will pay for the education; looking at the geographical area and the wealth distribution.”
That, he said, was because the three northern regions did not have enough wealth.
