Former Finance Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo has declared that the opposition National Democratic Congress is dead in the northern regions and is only waiting to be given fitting departure formalities come December 7th this year. Making an attempt to speak the local Hausa dialect, the MP for Akim Oda declared, to loud applause, "NDC Yamoto! NDC Yamoto,” meaning NDC is dead.
He noted that, the enthusiastic crowd that greeted New Patriotic Party Presidential Candidate Nana Akufo-Addo and his campaign team in Tamale on Sunday is a manifestation of the good will the people of northern Ghana have for the NPP government and the shows the dominance and popularity of the NPP in the area.
As a result, the NDC is now scared and is seeking ways to dilute the sweeping dominance of the NPP in their so-called world banks. The mammoth Sunday rally which observers described as Kasoa Number 2, following the highly successful rally used to formally outdoor the party's flagbearer and parliamentary candidates, was one of the largest in the history of the NPP in the Northern Region.
Indeed, so shaken have the NDC been that the party has now intensified its house to house campaigning, though the reception to their message has been cooler by the day, Mr Osafo Maafo said. Speaking at a strategic stakeholders meeting at the Radach Memorial Hotel, yesterday, Mr Osafo Maafo hinted that, though there are some petty internal problems within the ranks and file in the region, the polarisation and politicisation of the Abudu and Andani issues was the root cause of the party's defeat in the Tamale Metropolis. He noted that, there is no reason why the party should lose again after the good works of the NPP and so much transformation in the metropolis.
Mr. Osafo Maafo urged the party in the region, to win at lease 15 of the 26 parliamentary seats in the area, pointing out that of the 46 seats in the three northern regions, the NPP has only 11 seats. He therefore called on the party to forget about the past and forge ahead in unity to return the NPP to power to continue with its development programmes in the north. Meanwhile, some leaders of the NDC in the region have expressed fears about their party’s chances in the December polls. "Things have really changed in Tamale and if this crowd is [anything] to go by then I’m afraid we have already lost in Tamale," one of them told this paper.
Alan Kyerematen, a member of the Akufo-Addo campaign team, entreated the leadership and rank and file of the party in the region to continue their solid partnership to garner more votes to sweep most of the seats in the region. He said, the only way the people can convince anybody to vote for the party is to tell "our story", the success story of the Kufuor administration and Nana Akufo-Addo’s plans to build on the foundations laid by the government he served in for over six and a half years.
"There is only one way to win the elections, which is to market our flagbearer Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo."Mr Kyerematen said the country needs an experienced politician to take over the affairs of the country after President Kufuor hands over on January 7, "and that person is Nana Addo, our Presidential Candidate."He said, the NPP candidate has over 30 years experience in politics, "We need somebody like Nana Addo to take us to the promise land. This is a man of vision who can move Ghana forward".
