I'm Not A Criminal -Akufo-Addo

Flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo has debunked allegations by the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) that members of the ruling party are criminals who want to win power to destroy the country's economy.

“Go and tell the NDC that I’m not a criminal and if I need money I would remain in my law chambers and make money for my family,” he declared. He said members of the NPP were more patriotic than all the former ministers of the PNDC/NDC regimes who could not account for their stewardship to Ghanaians after they had handed over power to the Kufuor administration in 2001. He noted that judgment belonged to God and that he and the NPP would surely win in the December 7 polls, contending that the umbrella knew it would never come back to power again.


Nana Akufo-Addo said this during the party's regional rally at Ho in the Volta Region. Thousands of people from all parts of the region thronged the RTC Park at Ho to welcome the flagbearer and his entourage. The flagbearer, who expressed surprise at the mammoth crowd which converged on the rally ground, said it was a testimony to the fact that NPP would retain power. He said Voltaians had changed their voting pattern in favour of the NPP when he got the audience awestruck with an ewe proverb: ‘tsa le vo tsatsa le vo’.


Nana Akufo-Addo announced that when he becomes the next president of Ghana, Senior High School education would be free and ICT would dominate the country, adding that the next NPP government would improve road infrastructure and health care as well as make sure that each region has a public university. He said God had blessed Ghana with crude oil, so the people should vote for the NPP in order for them to efficiently manage the economic boom of the country from next year.


The former Foreign Affairs Minister said crude oil had so far been discovered in the Western and Volta regions in commercial quantities and they were going to manage it to the benefit of all. He mentioned that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) would be entrenched further so that people from the Volta region could have access to health care at other health facilities across the country. Nana Addo asked the people not to vote for NDC to reintroduce the criminal libel law, under which innocent journalists were tortured for telling the truth.


He asked the people to vote for the NPP because the NDC had nothing to offer them in terms of development, observing that the wind of change was blowing and many Ghanaians were calling for the retention of the NPP government. He disclosed that a vote for the NDC and other opposition parties would mean drawing the nation backwards and called on the electorate to tolerate one another and ensure that peace prevailed during the December polls. He also advised them to unite as one family and not allow partisan politics to divide them.


Nana Addo again assured Voltaians that he would become leader for all Ghanaians and not for a particular tribe, when voted as president of the Republic.There were loud shouts of NPP slogans in different Ghanaian languages when Alan Kyerematen, popularly called Alan Cash, mounted the podium to address the mammoth crowd. He said four years ago, there was no support for NPP in the Volta Region and people found it difficult to wear NPP T-shirts; but now, the support for the elephant had been very great as a result of the unprecedented developments fashioned out by NPP in the region.

He advised the people to vote for the NPP because the party could not win the polls without the support of the Volta region. He told the anxious crowd that their presence at the rally ground was not enough and that they should vote for Nana to ensure a resounding victory, adding that the NDC had already collapsed in the Volta region. He also announced that it had been prophesied that the elephant would rule Ghana for another 8 years. Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, Chairman of the NPP Campaign Committee lamented that from 1992 to 2000, Voltaians rejected NPP but they had now changed their minds in recognition of the great Ewes who fought for the progress of the UP Tradition.


“It is not possible for anyone to say NDC has done more than the NPP because the Kufuor administration did great things for the Volta Region. Nana Akufo-Addo is a leader God has chosen to lead Ghana”. A former Minister of Finance, Yaw Osafo Maafo, declared that henceforth, the ‘world bank’ of the NDC had turned into a rural bank and that the December 7 polls was going to be a match between NPP and NDC only. “We vote because of development and that is why NPP has developed the Volta region”.He indicated that inflation had risen only from 14 percent to 17 percent under the NPP.


“It is clear that NPP are good managers than NDC,” he said, adding that Ghanaians would be safer under the NPP. According to the Volta Regional Minister, Kofi Dzamesi, the Kufuor Administration had constructed many roads and put up several classrooms for communities across the country, and Volta Region was not left out. He said with the construction of the Akasti-Aflao and the Worawora-Dambai roads which would soon be completed, the transportation of farm produce from market centers in the northern Volta to the urban centers would be easier.


He said the School Feeding Programme which had been well received by Voltaians, had given rise to increased enrolment of school children in every part of the region. The Minister said the National Youth Employment Programme had put money into the pockets of the youth thereby reducing the rate of unemployment drastically. Mawusi Awuty, a member of the NPP national campaign team, said that Professor John Evans Atta Mills was never fit to rule Ghana because the NDC had relegated the Volta Region to the background, after voting them into office from 1992 to 2000. She promised that when Nana becomes president, Volta Region would move forward.


She asked the people to vote for all the NPP parliamentary candidates in the area and Nana Akufo-Addo. Madam Grace Omaboe, popularly called Mame Dokunu, was welcomed on stage with the “Naa Nana, Naa Shuo” slogan. She asked Voltaians if the region belonged to the NDC, and the response was an emphatic “No!”


According to her, the NDC was a vindictive party, explaining that she defected to the NPP as a result of what she had seen and heard, and that everybody should leave the NDC for Rawlings and his wife and join the elephant family. She said today, every woman had financial freedom because they had benefited from the MASLOC and LEAP programmes as well as the free maternal health care.