Mahama: “Our Opponents Are Trembling”

President John Dramani Mahama has said that the New Patriotic Party (NPP), the main political opponents of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) is trembling at the sight of unity of purpose that has been demonstrated by the ruling party at the just-ended special delegates’ congress in Kumasi.

According to the President, the wish of NDC’s opponents is for the party to continue to present a disunited front as it goes into the electioneering campaign towards the 2012 general elections in December, but said they are disappointed by the unity that the ruling party has showcased in Kumasi with the presence of former President Jerry John Rawlings at the congress.

The President said this in his victory speech while addressing tens of thousands of party faithful who had gathered at the Jackson Pack in Kumasi on Thursday for the party’s 2012 campaign launch after being elected in an election in which he was the sole candidate and pulled an unprecedented 99.5% of valid votes representing 2767 out of the 2781 total votes cast.

He charged NDC supporters to remain resolute in working hard for a resounding victory for the party in the elections in order that the ‘Better Ghana’ agenda which was began by late President John Evans Atta Mills would be continued under his stewardship as President.

According to the President, his endorsement is “gargantuan” and “unprecedented,” adding that the NDC government for the past three and half years has been laying the foundation for a transformational take off for the country’s development and called on Ghanaians to retain the party in power in order for it to continue with the “Better Ghana’ agenda.

The opposition NPP has severally indicated it is poised to snatch political power from the NDC in this year’s elections by any means possible. Top guns of the party, including their flagbearer, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, have been making statements considered dangerous for the health of country.

Among the critical issues of concern to the NPP as regards the 2012 elections, according to President Mahama, is that the NDC should continue to be disunited, a situation they wished to exploit to their electoral advantage. There have been pronouncements by leading members of the NPP on various campaign platforms bordering on anticipated violence and religious and ethnic politics in the elections.

President Mahama told the enthusiastic party supporters at the rally that “This election is not “all-die-be-die,” apparently in direct response to the ethnically-lased explosive statement made by NPP flagbearer, Mr Williams Akufo-Addo that the 2012 election is a matter of “all die be die” for the Akan ethnic group in the country. He called on Akans to take up arms against members of other ethnic groups in the country in a bid to ensure that he becomes president.

The NPP flagbearer made the statement at a closed-door meeting with NPP party faithful in Koforidua in the Eastern region. Mr Akufo-Addo is also on record to have told NPP student members of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology that the NPP must win the 2012 elections at all costs.

A former chairman of the NPP, Mr Peter Mac Manu and current deputy communications director of the party, Samuel Awuku, went a step further in giving graphic details about how the party expects to carry out the “all-die-be-die” agenda.

Whilst Mr Manu said surprisingly on radio that on election day, NPP will arm its militants with guns, cutlasses and other deadly weapons to execute the plan, Samuel Awuku told polytechnic student members of the NPP in Koforidua that in the absence of guns, they should arm themselves with discarded pestles which they should hit people’s mouths with in defence of the ballot boxes on election day.

Beyond that, current chairman of the NPP, Mr Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey, has also endorsed the ‘all-die-be-die’ mantra by saying that Akans in Ghana will emulate their Ivorian counterparts by defending their “birth right” in the 2012 elections.

Also on top of the list of explosive statements made by top NPP gurus is the infamous genocidal call by NPP Member of Parliament for Assin North, Kennedy Agyapong, which statement has a subtle endorsement of the NPP leadership, on Akans to engage in mass slaughter of people from the Volta region and the Ga people.

At NPP’s campaign launch at the Conference Centre in Accra last week, National Organiser of the party revealed the religious dimension of his party’s ‘all-die-be-die’ agenda by calling on Ghanaian Muslims to vote on religious lines. He told Muslims to vote for NPP to make it possible for the Koran to be used in the swearing-in of running mate of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, NPP’s flagbearer running mate as vice president on January 13, 2013.

But President Mahama has called on NDC faithful to shun all forms of discrimination and violence in the elections. He said his election as flagbearer is ample evidence that the NDC does not discriminate against social, economic or religious background.

He charged NDC supporters to be vigilant but not violent in the elections, insisting that the NDC will win the polls “one touch” and that there would be no run-off in December.