As the day to decide the next son or daughter to represent our great party for the next elections in Asante-Akyem North Constituency draws closer, we need to reflect over important issues before casting your final vote. Please note that, that single vote from you is the most important decision that will affect millions of our citizens in that little corner of our world. Please make informed decision before casting that final vote.
We have had six occupants on the Asante-Akyem North Constituency seat in the national assembly. They are Hon. Addison (CPP) from Odumasi, Hon. NYB Adade (PP) from Asante-Akyem Wenchi, Hon. SK Boafo (PFP) from Juaso and the sitting MP of Subin Constituency, Nana Akuoku Sarpong (Agogohene) made some representation during the twelve (12) years of the PNDC era, Hon. Collins Agyarko Nti - Joe Pasaasa - (NDC) from Juansa, and finally our current occupant, Hon. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu (NPP) from Agogo. Are these men similar in terms of personality, vision, and performance? Of course not. Why not? Let us begin with their individual analysis.
Honourable Addison was a puppet imposed on Asante-Akyem by Kwame Nkrumah's misrule using his CPP machinery for nine (9) years. Nkrumah's anarchical governance brought untold hardships to bear on our beloved people. That was a nightmare on our forefathers' experience with despot Kwame Nkrumah. The good side of Hon. Addison was his foresight. He brought Konongo-Odumasi Secondary School, revamped the gold mining centers in Asante-Akyem such as Konongo, Odumasi, Obenemase, Kyekyewere, and so forth to increase activities in the district and to provide ample jobs for the youth. He tarred Konongo-Agogo road for the first time ever, invested in farmers, and practically initiated all that we see around us in Konongo and Asante-Akyem at large. Hon. Addison was a handsome man, quiet, humble, and respectful. Asante-Akyem's constant demand for his ouster agitated and forced Ekrobo Edusei to throw one of his tantrums to them at Konongo Purvis park that: "you lucky to have Hon. Addison, if it were me your necks would have been tied with ropes to cart me through Konongo streets like Her Majesty from England" (Laughter followed)
Honourable NYB Adade became MP in 1969 on the PP ticket. He was equally handsome, noble, respectful, and humble. He added value to the skeletal structure crafted by Addison. Hon. Adade brought hydroelectric power to Asante-Akyem and moved away from the motor-generated light survived from Konongo mines under Addison. He brought clean drinking pipe-borne water to nearly all Asante-Akyem villages not only Konongo, Odumase, Juaso, Juansa, Bompata, and Agogo which were the larger towns in the district at the time. Schools were built to add onto Addison's work. Asante-Akyem's timber-tractor footpaths were turned into feeder roads and properly constructed to relieve traveling stress from the people. Konongo clinic at Ahyiaem started operating to beef up the good work at Agogo hospital. Many projects were in the pipeline to promote Konongo and Asante-Akyem, but "fofie anto atta" the good works of this son of the soil were shortened by Gun-man Okutu Acheampong.
Then came Hon. Sampson Kwaku Boafo in 1979 on the PFP ticket. There isn't much that can be said about Hon. Boafo because like Hon. Adade's time, his chance was also truncated by Gun-man Jerry Rawlings. However, on the measurement of timeframe, Hon. Boafo spent the same number of years in parliament as Hon. NYB Adade did. But on assessing their prime time achievements, Boafo does not come any closer to the pathfinder, Hon. Adade. This might probably be the reason why Boafo had to take another pitch elsewhere in the Subin Constituency because he would have been discarded immediately for shoddy work done in Asante-Akyem South - as we were then referred to. My assessment cannot be any superfluous here in spite of how strongly you may disagree with me regarding Hon. Boafo's poor or non-performance. The honourable gentleman representing Subin Constituency by proxy has been advised privately to step down from his ambitions to represent Subin in future and he has paid heed to this order. That is he has been discharged dishonourably. Let's move on.
The Honourable Nana Akuoku Sarpong (Agogohene) represented Asante-Akyem North over so many issues even though he was not officially charged through the ballot box to do the things he did over the nineteen years under Gun-man Jerry Rawlings. In fact I will give credit to Naa Sarpong over a number of issues. One, Naa Agogohene out-smarted Jerry Rawlings, convinced him to build silos (where grains or millies are stored) to sway the Asante-Akyem citizens' mind away from Jerry Rawlings' mass grave sentiments on Asante. Rawlings quickly erected six of those which were used as stockpile of grenades, AK-47 machine guns, magazines, and so forth. Nana leaked the information to Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu in opposition at that time and a night's raid on the silos wiped the military guards and emptied them of the weapons. Today, Asante-Akyem exists with silos that can be used by generations to come. Two, Naa Sarpong is Omanhene and he has worked assiduously to build a befitting palace on the Asante-Akyem soil that I can pride myself of in areas of tourism. Three, under Nana's reign a fish pond has been created in the Afram plains to farm fish. We will support Nana to go a mile over by developing a fish-processing factory, and we can help. And many other little things that the Omanhene has done to help Asante-Akyem that may be hidden from my radar. Two predicaments seemed to have crippled Naa Sarpong's political career: first, was during Nana's representation of Asante-Akyem over the Black-Maria disaster in Nigeria in which six Asante-Akyem North Constituency youth from Praaso and Dweaase died in the hands of the brutal Nigerian police. Critics believe that Naa Sarpong pocketed the compensation funds that came out of the criminal case against Nigerian Government. The families of the dead did not get anything and the case died out. His second predicament was when Gun-man Jerry Rawlings made him the minister of health. His outfit made changes to the pharmaceutical branch of his ministry which affected Agogo folks so much because there were many of our Agogo folks in the pharmaceutical sector and Nana's actions did not send a good message to them. They receded to their homestead and awaited for his skin. They called for Nana's impeachment that never came anyway, and literally exiled him from Agogo for almost as long as he remained with Jerry Rawlings in Accra. After a second thought, Agogo folks agreed that Nana has genuinely made a huge impact to the socio-economic development in their area. Hence, the cessation of all hostilities against the traditionalist. I heard that Nana was even planning of a highway from Nkawkaw via Atibie through Agogo to Kumasi alongside with his successful negotiation to uplift the Agogo Hospital to a teaching hospital with resident medical students now. That would have been perfect if the highway plan had gone through. There is also a sister city program ongoing in Agogo. In fact if Nana Akuoko Sarpong had enjoyed the trust, freedom and support over the years as Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu has, things would have been far different in our constituency than it is today. Although the victims of the Black-Maria massacre were my classmates and friends from childhood at Praaso which brings emotions whenever it is revisited, however, on balance Nana Akuoko Sarpong comes out as a good leader to emulate. He is human and no one is perfect therefore on critical analysis, Nana must be cheered up, good job Omanhene.
The Omanhene Nana Akuoko Sarpong, Hon. NYB Adade, and the late Hon. Addison have demonstrated that one does not need to pop out money from one's own pockets in order to help one's constituency that he or she has sworn to represent. All that it takes is organization, ability to sell your area in the midst of many other demands, and smartness, vision, and ability to dream a good dream. We must be grateful that we've had leaders like the late Asumegyahene Nana Oduro-Nimapau, and the Agogo Omanhene Nana Akuoko Sarpong when the going really got tough. Without them, honestly guns would have silenced Asanteman. We salute you, Nana Sarpong. Let's move on.
Then entered Honourable Collins Agyarko Nti (alias Joe Pasaasa) in 1992 on NDC ticket . He was an erratic fellow who was dismissed from high school because of his criminal behaviour of taunting teachers and school authority reminiscent of his boss, Gun-man Jerry Rawlings. There isn't anything good on record to say about Joe Pasaasa, except that of his miserable behaviour, buffoonery, and horror in his four-year-term in parliament. Joe Pasaasa found his feet in the house only because of NPP boycott of parliament in that year.
In 1996 NPP reorganized and decided to wrestle power from the NDC menace, at least to get rid of Joe Pasaasa from our side of political horizon. In our NPP primaries, Hon. Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu contested with political heavyweights like Prof. Micah of Odumasi but Hon. Wiredu won massively because Dr. Micah was seen as a flip-flop between NDC and NPP. In 2000 we maintained Hon. Wiredu to fight the NDC choice of DC Opoku-Manu from Konongo, and again Hon. Wiredu won massively because DC Manu was also a flip-flop between UP and NDC. In 2004 democracy was at its best, Baah-Wiredu was still our choice. Why? Because soldiers had destroyed the country for quite too long and needed time for our MPs to settle down to produce. Again, we needed to unite behind the President to win big in his second term. That sounded cool so let's keep Hon. Baah-Wiredu to stay in parliament from 2004 to 2008. Our leniency has cost us 12 solid years of inaction, poor performance, and solitary confinement of our constituency. A very sad story from Agogo: Haruna, a close friend of Koo Baah, has a child who gained admission to Legon needed an authentic endorsement from a reputable personality to co-sign with him. The young man immediately cornered Koo Baah to help him and this dishonourable member of our constituency refused to help because he does not want to land in the same place where Dan Agbodakpi is. Another sad story form Konongo: Omane-Frimpong, a successful Konongo businessman, spotted an electrification project for 400 villages in Ghana funded by Chinese Government but contested by MPs for the cut. Koo Baah's attention was drawn and sought for to include at least ten of our villages of which he agreed. Moreover, as a minister of Finance and Economic Planning, the final signature will hit on his desk before clearance. Well he appended his signature all right for the project to proceed without a single village from Asante-Akyem. Is that a curse? Can anything good emerge from Agogo-Abenkwanase? [... enti bribi pa bi betumi apue firi Agogo-Abenkwanase aba anaa?] Are we paying dearly because of the water we drink from all our rivers: Afram, Owerri, Anunu, etc. surrounding Asante-Akyem? Definitely not, it is because of the choices we make. Am I being realistic with Hon. Wiredu? Is there anything that I am omitting from my analysis that can be credited to Mr. Wiredu? Now let us grab Koo Baah by the tail and dissect him: In his first term in the House, (1996-2000) our MP, Hon. Baah-Wiredu was in the opposition and in minority under presidential imposter, Jerry Rawlings, who hardly commanded any descent respect. Therefore we can give Mr. Wiredu the benefit of doubt that he did not have influence to bring developments to Asante-Akyem North Constituency under Gun-man Jerry Rawlings. Sounds realistic, isn't it? How about his second term in Parliament (2000-2004), what did he do? Nothing, actually he was running around in funerals dodging potholes and boasting of being a YES-man (probably during his tenure as Youth, Education, and Sports minister), or may be a rubber-stamp YES sir, master minister. How about his third term in Parliament (2004-2008), what has he done? Nothing, and in fact he has been buried in work as a Finance and Economic Planning Minister that he has completely ostracized himself from the good folks, and he has even neglected his prime functions for been in Parliament. Hon. Baah-Wiredu is seriously out of touch for over two solid years. Why? Because he sees the bigger picture for Ghana and as a matter of fact the entire African continent and not that of Asante-Akyem. Now your non-performing member of parliament is seeking for a fourth term in the house (2008-2012) to remain hopeless, will you vote for him? Please pause for a second, close your eyes, put your right hand on your chest, and then ask yourself: Does Koo Baah really deserve another term in parliament? And you answer must be a big NO.
Please honourable decision-makers, hear my plea and prayers, Asante-Akyem North deserves better than the ordeal that we have gone through all these years. Please make a change and do not select Koo Baah again. One does not need to be an MP before given a ministerial position. An MP must be visionary, always looking for opportunity to create jobs for his or her constituency, and always in contact with his or her people to design strategies to develop. He is locked in an all out war with two other members of our party. We also know that he is doling out money to bride the delegates for the primaries. Please take the money all right, but the decision for Asante-Akyem North Constituency is yours. Please make a better informed-decision this time and vote responsibly.
The projects forecasted for Asante-Akyem North are one, Orange squeezing factory within the enclave of Bimma, Adwareeago, Akutuase and Patriensa. The machinery for the project is available in Florida, USA and in China at a relatively reasonable price. Two, palm oil processing within Praaso, Dweaase, Asisiriwa, Borekowaano, Anunuso and so forth can bring lots of jobs to the rural folks. Three, Fish processing factory in Agogo employing folks in Juansa, Hwediem, Krofa, Adomfe, and Agogo. Four, cocoa processing factory in Peminase providing jobs for Koforidua and all towns along the line. Five, the goldmines and all the quarries need to be revisited. All these ambitious projects require money. How do we fund these? The question is how many Asante-Akyem folks are there in Diaspora - USA, Canada, Britain, Italy, Rest of Europe, Australia, etc. - does Koo Baah know this? How many Asante-Akyem folks are there in Ghana working and can afford to contribute $2000.00 a year for job creation? What are our three top priorities that needs immediate attention with a constituency funding of $5.3 million? Trust me we can easily raise more than $10 million a year for the constituency.
All these demand a very proactive MP, who can work smart not hard and will be in constant deliberations with the district for developments. Hardworking guy Koo Baah has failed and he needs to step aside. Asante-Akyem folks around the globe are watching with special interest in your decision. We are ready to support you financially with all the projects enumerated here if you can give us a down to earth somebody who can work with us to develop Asante-Akyem North. We rely on your thoughtfulness to vote responsibly. I yield awaiting for your final decision.
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