Why Akuffo Addo and NPP beat the pack

Over the last few months, I have carefully followed the furore brewing ahead of the 2016 elections campaign as the expected fierce contest of national development ideas start their journey into our hearts and minds, hoping to convince us to cast our December 7 vote for the best of these campaign messages.

Ideas or policies that would take Ghana out of her current predicament and relieve Ghanaians of the pains of the killer “ekikimi” electricity bills, collapse of Ghanaian businesses, persistent failures in electricity supply, now christened “dumsor”, huge unemployment rates and students failure rates at school leaving exams, see latest WASSCE results on Ghana, and a frustratingly heavy national rate of indebtedness to every other local and foreign loan institution, although the ruling NDC government says these huge loans have been invested into development of infrastructure.

Policies from all sides of the political divide have been thrown out to Ghanaians to chew on in making their choice come December 7, this year.

Naturally, such atmosphere evokes heated debates when the details of suggested policy alternatives come to be interrogated by both discerning minds and the political propagandist elements within the ruling government, as these outside policies initiatives are aimed at government failings.

Where these heated feelings are not well channeled so as to engage government to go back to the policy drawing board for corrections, then political “attack dogs” are released not to intelligently contest the policy alternatives from the other parties but to “bark” so loud in the hope it might drown out these great alternatives proffered from reaching the electorates, or to confuse the average minded voter from accessing these relevant information to make up their minds on how or who to vote for.

Our nation Ghana, is in a big leadership crisis and although this obvious truth is not admitted by the ruling government of the NDC and President John Mahama, it is so huge a crisis that the average Ghanaian bears witness to this fact in the latest Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) report, and agree that the December 7 elections this year will make or break whatever is left of any chance of economic recovery lifeline our dear country is hanging on.

With all the various political party alternative policies or manifesto out and even more to come, I invite you to carefully travel the rest of this article with me as we look for answers to the question of which party or candidate to vote for come December 7, and why Ghanaians must vote carefully by analyzing the messages, track record in office, the governance team quality and the personal integrity of the leader of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).

The NPP's Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo's latest strategic vision for re prioritizing the developmental needs of Ghana, arrived at after evaluating empirical and practical study of the current national development plan as guided by our constitution through the Directive Principles of State Policy, his many years in private business and through whose agency Ghana today enjoys her expansive network of mobile telephony that has employed millions of people and his legendary political and legal experience in contributing to our legal landscape by way of developing our laws, training and mentoring of many leading lawyers and personalities of today.

Nana Akuffo Addo's boldness and ability to conceptualize this bottom-up development initiative in the face of the current dire need of majority of our people to survive, to propose to build in every district a factory to focus on taping the natural resources capabilities, the pool of unemployed youth in these districts, put money in their pockets, thus stemming the high tide of unemployed youth who flood to the capital city and big towns looking for non existent jobs and become lured into all manner of social vices, is visionary leadership.

The initiative is also to open up the country's internal bread basket base and the balancing of trade and business opportunities in the rural areas as well as helping to diversify the nation's foreign export base even further, as more products are discovered or developed and added to the traditional exports.

This well meaning initiative by a party that has more than proven in its eight year period in office that it is capable of delivering, has drawn blood and caused fear and panic in the camp of the ruling NDC who even though in government have not shown Ghanaians any tangible reason why any more of our time and money should be entrusted to them, come December 7.

Perhaps, to answer their chorus of persistent cacophony on policies being impossible to achieve whenever its not coming from them, without having to bother about reminding them in government how they, led by Lee Ocran, Okudjeto Ablakwa and other leading acolytes of their cult huffed and puffed when the NPP first launched its equally well thought out Free SHS education policy.

They vowed it was impossible and would not work in Nkrumah's Ghana, only to now be keenly rushing it through some ill-prepared implementation, as they lack the background empirical research and expert opinion that went into the NPP's scheme. Thank God they at least found the light in His wisdom. Haba!!.

I also remember as I have said about their huffing and puffing, that Lee Ocran actually stood in our august parliament teasing and calling as palm kernel oil, the oil samples brought there to show how the forward thinking oil exploration strategy of the NPP under President Kuffuor was beginning to yield results.

As I write, those same nay-saying huffing and puffing impossibility spewing NDC have blown over three billion dollars that Kuffuor's oil exploration work has yielded on thin air.

Like I said, to answer them, may I appeal to them to discern some wisdom from this quote by the famous Lord Denin, Master of the Rolls. when he questioned the other side in his ruling in the case of Parker v Parker thus;

“What is the argument on the other side, only this, that no case has been found in which it has been done before?. We shall never get anywhere. The law will stand still while the rest of the world goes on, and that will be bad for both.”

To the nay-saying NDC to Nana Akuffo Addo and the NPP's latest development policy meant to save Ghana because they either have never bothered to try relieving our people of all the hardship or shocked at the practical nature of the policy to turn around the hardships of the people.

Two key points drop off the quote above that, (1) The value of doing things not done before; It takes a visionary leader that is bold, open minded and who understands the critical underlying factors that bedevil his people. He is also a calculated risk taker for the good of his people and not one who sits back and relies on a certain “progressive” term in their constitution as a caveat not to perform.

He is not one who is indecisive in his own life or does not believe in telling the truth to the people they lead.

(2) The importance of not allowing rules, principles, and values to stand stagnant while the world moves on; Nana Addo has shown the way by looking at a perennial issue and deciding to do something about it to improve the situation.

Again, to those age concerned nay-sayers, Nana Akuffo Addo, strong and healthy as he is as a leader is only to over see the delivery of these policies and visions conceived to see a better Ghana, by working with an efficient and experienced Team “A” governance and technical experts who at his direction implement the agenda. President Ouattara of the Ivory Coast has already shown that it is great ideas built over time with maturity and focus that get a country developed and not any hip-hop hurrays without any ideas or a heart for the people they seek to rule.

Today, with such experienced and visionary leadership, the aged Ouattara has turned his once war-torn country into the largest producer and exporter of cashew, overtaking traditional leading producers like India, while in these same years Ghana, that never went through any civil war is wallowing in the dark in misery under President John Mahama and his NDC government.

In a time of national crisis on all fronts as we are experiencing now especially in the direction and management of our resources, a visionary leader must be able to dig deep into his arsenal of ideas to pull a game changer policy, but clearly the youthfulness of the ruling class is so green they have no arsenal to dig into for solutions.

The NDC also has lacked the boldness needed to admit to Ghanaians that they are struggling. Leadership is daring the issues that face your people, not just watching them. By the above, am referring these NOTHING IS POSSIBLE singing NDC team “B” plus one “A” stars to this statement by the former progressive President of Botswana, Festus Mugae on Joy News Channel on Multitv a few years ago when he was in Ghana, that “Botswana now has about 90% Literacy rate because of Free Education to the Secondary level.

Additional teachers were recruited from other countries including Ghana. School infrastructures were constructed while the Free education program was ongoing. At the tertiary level, Science Students had full scholarship, others had interest free loans”.

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe when he first attained independence and realized that his people severely lacked education resolved to commit as much as 50% of that country?s resources to this very important sector on which all other sectors depended until his aim was achieved.

The one factory per district policy can very much be done if we make it a national priority, an urgent one as such. What is the NDC's argument at all?, what are their solutions to the issues Nana Addo aims at solving with his policy.

Are they disputing the availability of vast fertile land and natural resources in these districts, or disputing that we have a pool of hard working youth sitting around in these districts doing nothing?. Is it the case that such horrifying facts about the real state of the people causes fear and drills holes in their Green Book or so called Better Ghana Agenda?.

It is about a leader's vision which he shares with the people so they come along with him, if he inspires their trust and confidence. Does President Mahama inspire that level of trust in Ghanaians currently?.

When, like Nana Akuffo Addo, the leader is a natural pace-setter, beats his integrity and incorruptibility on table tops but a whole government investigative apparatus cannot counter that claim, and is compassionate as well, you know you have a great leader. These qualities and his vision for the future of the people are what makes him step up to the plate and ask to be entrusted with leadership.

Again, I ask what really is the argument on the other side?

Fellow Ghanaians, these are but just a few of the key issues put to you by the NPP on the parties and personalities and the choices facing us in the coming elections. Let nobody tell you its about our tribes, its not its about mother Ghana, and she is not very well at the moment.

Its also definitely not about the ages of the contestant as you have seen above, but great ideas that move nations forward from great leaders backed by a pool of team “A” achievers, and this is exactly what the NPP led by Nana Akuffo Addo seeks to give to our people. The NPP has done it before and that is why we can all now see that the John Mahama government has failed, even to maintain the good projects it inherited from President Kuffuor.

This election is not about the usual love for one's party but about which party has been there and performed. Its about Mother Ghana over any Partisan interests. Therefore, the choice really is not a contest at all, viewed policy by policy, governance team by team, candidate by candidate and their parties' performance records in government.

Rescue Ghana by voting for the New Patriotic Party (NPP). Rescue Ghana by voting for Nana Akuffo Addo. Rescue Ghana by voting for NPP Parliamentary Candidates. Rescue Ghana by voting for Development in Peace.