NPP Youth Wing commends Nana Addo

PRESS STATEMENT 6th MARCH, 2012 NPP YOUTH WING COMMENDS NANA AKUFO-ADDO FOR PERFORMANCE ON HARDTALK

The Youth Wing of the New Patriotic Party commends the leader and flagbearer of our Party, Nana Akufo -Addo for the dazzling performance he put up when he appeared on the world renowned BBC flagship programme, HARDtalk hosted by Stephen Sackur.

For the NPP Youth wing, the mere decision by the producers of HARDtalk, which has been a BBC flagship programme, since its introduction in 1997, is an acknowledgment and huge endorsement of the ever increasing stature of Nana Akufo-Addo in the current scheme of things globally. HARDtalk has featured among others prominent world leaders like US Presidents, Bill Clinton and George Walker Bush, the then Pakistani President, Pervez Musharaf, the then South African President Thabo Mbeki, former US Vice-President Al Gore, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, President Felipe Calderon of Mexico, President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, Former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez, Mahmoud Abass, Leader of Palestine among many many other world leaders.

Indeed as the names that have appeared on the programme show, HARDtalk is no mean a programme which would welcome leaders who are global non-entities or any leader without a credible global status or any leader whose poor understanding of global diplomacy, reality and issues has led to his isolation and diminished status within his own sub-region. Therefore, an appearance of an opposition leader of a sub-saharan country like Ghana on such a huge platform goes a long way to prove the status and respect Nana Akufo-Addo is accorded globally especially coming on the heels of his delivery of the 2012 Oppenheimer Lectures organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a leading authority on global security and political developments.

Also, it is important to note that the host of HARDtalk, Stephen Sackur is not a journalist of the caliber of the ones who have been aptly bracketed by the former Attorney-General to be in a league of Rented journalists and who are the ones some Political leaders are most comfortable facing in one on one interview sessions during which we hear more of praise singing than questioning and the stature of Sackur was concretized when he was named the 'International TV Personality of the Year' by the Association for International Broadcasting (AIB) in November 2010.

The Youth Wing of the NPP observed the alacrity with which various ‘inexperienced members of the communications team of the NDC’ and Mills’ government fell over themselves to attack the performance of Nana Akufo-Addo when he appeared on HARDtalk. For us in the Youth Wing, this attitude is not in the least surprising as it has become obvious that anytime Nana Akufo-Addo speaks, the NDC and the whole government machinery comes to a standstill or at best is set in hallucinatory rides of confusion and agony. It is very obvious that the voice of Nana Akufo-Addo has become a nightmare for the President and the men around him.

However, it is very important that we expose the shameless hypocrisy in the criticisms of the NDC on the performance of Nana Akufo-Addo. First, we have heard some say that Nana Akufo-Addo fumbled throughout the interview. It is obvious that many of those who have gone on this tangent are unaware of what fumbling is. Fumbling is when a speaker gets so confused that instead of saying ‘economy’ he ends up saying ‘ecomini’. Fumbling is when a corrupt leader finds all sorts of absurd explanations to justify the corrupt behavior of Minister who spends state money on a girlfriend’s travel and pampers for his baby and fumbling is when an incompetent and corrupt President desperately attempts to defend a confidante and financier of his who has been criminally doled billions of tax-payers money by the President and his appointees. In no way can Nana Akufo-Addo be said to have fumbled on Hardtalk and anyone who goes on that tangent is either ignorant of the meaning of fumbling or is someone who does not appreciate the intelligent issues raised by the flagbearer of the NPP on the programme.

Again, the NDC have gone berserk and are questioning why Nana Akufo-Addo decided not to go into how the promise to deliver free Secondary education to all Ghanaians would be funded. First of all, any intelligent analysis would point out that a 25minute programme is not the platform for having a thorough dissection of how a major policy like free Senior High education would be funded especially when it was barely left with a minute to end the programme.

Again, it is interesting how the NDC which promised a free one time premium paying Health Insurance Scheme without ever going into how it would be funded is today questioning the NPP on how our programmes for this Nation when we are elected into office come January 2013 would be funded. Could Prof. Mills tell us how he was going to fulfil promises like the one term premium paying Health Insurance scheme? Did Atta Mills tell the people of the North how he was going to get 200million dollars as seed money for SADA and an additional annual funding of 100million Ghana cedis? Did Atta Mills tell the people of Tamale how he was going to fund his promise to make the Tamale Airport an International Airport? Did he tell anybody how he was going to build 20,000 and 50,000 Capacity Sports Stadiums in all Regional Capitals as was promised in the NDC 2008 manifesto? Did Atta Mills tell anyone how he was going to expand the School Feeding programme to all public schools within the first two years? He couldn’t and maybe it shouldn’t be a mystery while all these promises have failed to materialize and have been forgotten altogether by this deceptive Mills/Mahama administration.

Clearly, the hypocrisy of the NDC couldn’t be more pronounced on any issue than this particular one. Maybe we need to remind the NDC that before the 2000 General Elections, the NPP under the able leadership of John Agyekum Kufuor promised to abolish the killer Cash and Carry Policy of health delivery and replace it with a National Health Insurance Scheme, we might not have given a detailed presentation on how we were going to fund it, but when we assumed office we were able to implement that particular promise within our first term, thanks to the competent and committed men and women we had and still have in our Party.

In any case, the NPP has severally stated that in due course we would come out with the breakdown of how we are going to fund all the policy proposals we are going to introduce when elected before Ghanaians go to the polls and this includes the landmark promise to make Senior High education free so one wonders why the NDC are fretting so much. Is it probably because they want to steal this idea just like they stole the Northern Development Fund idea of Nana Akufo-Addo only to brand it as SADA?

The people of Ghana know very credibly that when the NPP promises it is able to deliver and deliver more than we even promised because we have competent and visionary men in our Party; people whose objective is not to loot the coffers of the state under the guise of Judgment Debt payments. The people of Ghana know that we would deliver on our promises not only because we can do it but because that is the sure way of building a modern society and breaking from the current hopelessness, incompetence, divisiveness, deception and Gargantuan corruption which has taken hold of the government machinery from the President to the lowest ranked appointee.

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