NPP-USA On Obama's Visit

PRESS STATEMENT OF NPPUSA ON UNITED STATES PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA’S VISIT TO GHANA.

Some functionaries of the NDC have began to circulate erroneous charges against the executive team of NPP-USA that it is planning to sabotage the visit to Ghana of United States President Barack Obama by bombarding the US State Department with false information. The charges are categorically false, and they represent the desperation of a party and a government having nothing to offer Ghanaians, and utterly unprepared to govern. The executive team of NPP-USA, however, wishes to make the following observations:

1. The USA Branch of the NPP, on its email group, allows unfettered freedom of expression on discussions related to Ghana’s development. Whatever individual opinions expressed thereon, in this case, by a non-member of the executive team, cannot be ascribed to the NPP-USA Leadership Team.

2. Given the NDC government’s obvious inaction on the deteriorating economic state and the worsening security atmosphere in Ghana, NPP-USA in fact appreciates President Obama for going to Ghana since his visit on July 10, represents the best economic activity by any government our nation will have witnessed since the inception of the Mills administration. NPP-USA, therefore, wants to go on record to welcome President Obama to Ghana so that he can bear witness to the atrocities that the do-nothing, out-of-control NDC government is perpetrating on hard-working Ghanaian citizens.

3. On July 10, President John Atta Mills will be sharing the stage with another president with whom he shares a couple of other characteristics. Both presidents are lawyers who assumed their respective presidencies in January of this year. The visitor is full of ideas, and has pushed through nearly 16 major policies and legislation to constitute his country’s answer to the current global economic crisis. On the other hand, President Mills, the host is yet to initiate a single, credible, substantive legislation or policy to alleviate the economic plight of Ghanaians. In fact, in spite of President Mills’ legal background, he continues to preside over a shameful onslaught of civil and human right abuses on fellow Ghanaians.

4. This new charge by the NDC is part of a grand design of blaming the NPP for everything that goes wrong. This time they are being proactive by establishing a scapegoat due to their virtual certainty that their abysmal six-month record threatens to embarrass them in front of a more progressive leader.

5. The NDC’s need to plant a Mole in the discussion forum of the NPP is a clear indication of its desperation. Members of NPP-USA stand ready to share nation-building ideas if the Mills administration would admit its ineptitude and ask for bi-partisanship; it does not have to resort to stealing of ideas by planting a Mole in a discussion group of NPP-USA. Information obtained via a shameful mole planting on a virtually public forum is a far cry from The Enquirer’s claim of intercepting supposedly secret information. Again there is nothing secretive about personal opinions expressed on an Internet discussion forum.

6. The United States Embassy in Ghana is one of the largest in Africa. Not only do officials there read the local newspapers, watch television, and listen to the radio, they customarily gather political information on every country in advance of an America President’s visit. It, therefore, perplexes the executive of NPP-USA that the do-nothing, out-of-control NDC government believes the opposition party in Ghana would be the source of country information for President Obama’s visit.

7. Finally, if the do-nothing, out-of-control NDC government is fearful of President Obama discovering the violence and intimidation of political opponents by its functionaries, President Mills can undo the damage by effecting an immediate cessation of the shameful practices and issuing an apology to the nation.