NPP flagbearer tours Northern Region

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) and his running mate Dr. Mahammud Bawumia are touring some constituencies of the Northern Region.

The tour forms part of the ‘restore hope tour’ of the party, which aims at winning more votes for election 2012.

It begun on Monday in the constituencies of the West Gonja District where they were received by some Senior High School students who cheered the duo, while farmers and some fishermen also lined the streets to wish them well.

The Northern Regional Secretary of the NPP, Dr. Clifford Braimah, told the GNA on Tuesday that, the tour has also taken the team, which included the MP for Okere, Dan Botwe and M. N. D Jawula to Tuluwe, Sheri, Kusuwgu and Yapei, all in the Central Gonja district.

He said Nana Addo has been telling the people about the economy, which had been poorly managed by the NDC government, and there was therefore the need for the NPP to restore hope, by re-engineering the economy to create more jobs for the people.

Nana Addo indicated that the current joblessness was due to the fact that the economy was not properly managed and could not create more jobs, hence the need to redirect it.

He explained that the NPP was committed to the free Senior High School system, noting that the state currently spends about 6% of the GDP on education. He said the NPP would spend 10% of the GDP on education, which would ensure that the free SHS was implemented; stressing that, Uganda has a lower per capital income than Ghana yet it was implementing free SHS.

Nana Addo said, the countries’ agricultural sector needs a transformation through commercial farming “that is why we procured the tractors before leaving office but the NDC in distributing them, is claiming to have procured them” explaining that better plans were in place to commercialize agriculture.

The tour, which is expected to end on the 25th of May, would also take them to Salaga, Wulensi, Kpandai and later hold a youth forum in Tamale as well as meeting professional bodies.

The tour would continue to the Upper East after the Northern Region’s tour.**