Mills/Mahama Government Busted -NPP Youth

The Youth Wing of the New Patriotic Party is calling the attention of the general Ghanaian populace to the theft of the ideas of the New Patriotic Party and especially its leader, Nana Akufo-Addo by the ruling John Mills/John Mahama government with specific respect to the Free Secondary School pledge of Nana Akufo-Addo which NDC elements have been falling over themselves to ridicule and declare unfeasible for months now.

To go straight to the point, it would be recalled that on 31st August, 2011, the flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party delivered a much applauded speech at the 1st Liberty Lecture during which he gave snippets of his vision to transform Ghana into a modern society and a society of opportunities and aspirations. In the speech, Nana Akufo-Addo touched briefly on few of the programs and ideas which are going to form part of the Educational Policy of the next NPP administration. On the specific issue we are raising, the flagbearer stated-

“We are aware that this will require that we carefully identify our spending priorities and imaginatively manage resources within the education sector. For the secondary school level (as for the primary), a policy of free education requires that we rethink the “model” of the senior high school (SHS) system.””

Nana Akufo-Addo continued by stating that

“As a veteran of the education sector put it, a SHS (like a primary school and a JHS), should be like a post office or police station, a development that every community deserves to have in adequate measure i.e. for all SHS-age children in that community who seek such an education. In such a community setting, the state’s obligation will be to provide a class-room block, trained teachers, a library, a suitable laboratory/IT Centre, workshops, perhaps even a cafeteria in conjunction with a private food services provider. There will be no need for boarding facilities for most students. Those who think Ghana cannot provide this for its people are like those who would have discouraged our forefathers from riding bicycles; the feat must have looked perilous, even impossible, for many of our forebears! ”

These specific ideas in relation to the remodelling of the Secondary School System to make it community based and thus more accessible to all children across the length and breadth of the country and the Teacher’s first Policy were the only definitive ideas (among the whole lot making up the NPP Educational Policy) the flagbearer revealed in that speech and interestingly the NDC has already decided to pilfer the idea of making Senior High Schools Community based.

The Youth Wing of the New Patriotic Party was amazed when we read in the media just last week that the Vice-President, John Dramani Mahama while addressing officials of the African Development Bank at the Castle had stated that the NDC administration was going to launch a new Senior High School initiative soon. Interestingly, the Vice-President indicated that the new major initiative the government was going to launch was a community based secondary school system to make the SHS more accessible, just like Nana Akufo-Addo had stated last August.

The Youth Wing of the great New Patriotic Party wishes to place on record that we are not in the least opposed to the sharing of ideas by political parties which lead to an improvement in the lives of the ordinary Ghanaian. What the Youth Wing is opposed to, is the naked and shameless hypocrisy of a visionless, incompetent and idea-bankrupt government which instead of praising feasible and workable policy alternatives from the opposition seeks to cast doubt on it and ridicule it not because there is any empirical evidence that the ideas are unworkable but because the ideas are coming from the leader of the opposition whose message and personality the government has done everything to destroy.

Ghanaians would recall that this is not the first time the NDC has engaged in such a shameful act. Prior to the 2008 Elections, Nana Akufo-Addo, the visionary and competent leader of the NPP, spelt out his programme and funding for the rapid development of the North of our country through the establishment of the Northern Development Authority (NDA). Immediately Nana Akufo-Addo brought out his vision on developing the North, John Mahama who was the then Running Mate to candidate Mills launched a blistering attack on Nana Akufo-Addo and the idea of the Northern Development Authority and went to the extent of taunting Nana Akufo-Addo to use the intended resources to be devoted to the NDA to pay the debts of the Volta River Authority. After ridiculing the idea so much, the NDC amazingly plagiarized the idea into their Manifesto, renaming it, the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA). As we have all come to verify, due to the fact that the idea of SADA was counterfeited by the NDC who lacked the original thinking which went into fashioning the vision of the Northern Development Authority, the NDC has failed woefully to fulfil the plagiarized SADA promise. We can predict that same would happen in this specific case of remodelling Senior High Education.

Indeed, for the Youth Wing of the NPP, the attempts by the NDC to steal the Community based Senior High idea is a vindication of Nana Akufo-Addo’s decision not to fully disclose the components of his Educational Policy, the costing of the Free Educational Policy and the source of funding etc. till the time is deemed right. This also exposes why the NDC is so desperate and eager to hear Nana Akufo-Addo give a full disclosure of the policy and why their elements have been so worried that Nana Akufo-Addo is not doing exactly as they wish.

In ending, we would urge the Atta Mills/ John Mahama administration to end their cheap and backward politicking which never sees anything good in realistic solutions proffered by any opposing Political grouping and to learn to acknowledge the source of ideas they wish to copy and implement especially when it happens to come from a man they have sought for years to destroy.

….Signed……………….. Anthony Abayifaa Karbo (National Youth Organizer, NPP)