NPP chairman advises President Mills

The National Chairman of the opposition New Patriotic Party, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey, has welcomed President Mills’ latest condemnation of the politics of insults and lies in the country and has asked the President to “show the way” by turning his words to action this time and call his men to order.

President Mills on Wednesday condemned “the spread of false information about political figures and the use of intemperate language” and wondered the kind of lessons adults were teaching the younger generation.

Whilst welcoming President Mills’ condemnation of the growing culture of character assassination under the NDC, the NPP Chairman said that the President must begin by getting the adults who work and speak for him to stop the politics of insults and lies first. “That is what we are all waiting for with baited breath,” he stressed.

Jake made this known in an interview with the New Statesman after the President’s appeal to the clergy to lead the crusade to halt the politics of insults and the growing incidence of false prophets that had plagued the society in recent times.

The President made this call when a delegation from the Methodist Church of Ghana led by the Presiding Bishop, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel Asante, paid a courtesy call on him at the Castle, Osu.

“He says he is against insults and yet his appointees, including Ministers, Chief Executives, spokespersons and newspapers sponsored from the Castle do nothing but to rain insults and lies on their political opponents and against the intelligence of Ghanaians. They do these in his name and in anticipation of either securing their jobs or winning a promotion,” Jake said.

He went on to state, “President Mills must lead the way in getting his appointees and members of his party to stop hurling insults and lies against the NPP, Nana Akufo-Addo and the leadership of our party and tell us how they intend to tackle the problems confronting our nation.”

According to Jake, this is not the first time that the President has been heard to speak against the culture of insults. Except, it appears it only bothers him when the insults are redirected to the Castle.“We are hoping that the NDC will learn from us and focus on matters that will improve the lot of our people. It seems President Mills and his team have given up on any hope of delivering on their better Ghana agenda and see false propaganda against us as a strategic diversion from the real issues and a deceptive mechanism to hide their incompetence,” the NPP Chairman argued.

“It is about time President Mills hears the evil language from his people and act against such evil. We would not allow the NDC to use insults and lies as a mask to cover up their incompetence and soil the political atmosphere.”

Jake pointed out that the things that concern Ghanaians the most are unemployment, rising cost of living and increasing poverty. “The NDC has done very little beyond worsening the plight of the ordinary Ghanaian. To deflect attention from their incompetence, they have opted for the politics of insults. But, we will not allow this to define the issues for 2012. We will continue to pull back the focus on what matters to the Ghanaian”, Jake said.

In his meeting with the clergy, President Mills spoke about the importance of strong moral and spiritual foundations in nation building and expressed the belief that the flock would join in addressing the evils once the leadership took interest in the matter.

This Jake found hypocritical, calling on the President to heed to his own advice first and lead by his own example.

The President also spoke against the influx of religious charlatans and their false claims and called on the Church to be resolute in purging them. Jake’s response was to ask President Mills to look within his own party and act against the political charlatans on the government’s payroll. “The President should act against the false claims of 1.6 million jobs created by his government in his first year of office, the false claims of this year being an action year and the false claims that the Better Ghana agenda is on course. All of these fall under his remit and the President must act,” Jake charged.

According to the NPP Chairman, there is a growing spate of joblessness and hopelessness gripping the nation coupled with the rising cost of living. Corruption is also rampant under the watch of President Mills. The “I care for you Mantra” used by President Mills in the 2008 campaign, has not been felt by the people.

“Ghanaians are getting poorer and poorer under President Mills’ ‘Better Ghana’,” he said, “and that is not my testimony. That is the national testimony.”