The four-day campaign tour of the Northern region by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo did not only afford the New Patriotic Party presidential candidate the opportunity to sell the policies and programme of his party to people, but also exposed the lies that President Mahama and the NDC have been telling Ghanaians with respect to development in the north.
After stealing the NPP’s development plan for the north, Northern Development Authority, and woefully failing in its implementation, under the name Savannah Accelerated Development Authority, which eventually became a vehicle for corruption, the NDC has virtually left the people of the North to their fate.
Even though President Mahama, before the 2012 elections, told Northerners they should vote for him since he is one of their own and could readily address their concerns, we find it strange that after almost eight years in government, the people are accusing him of failing to provide them with basic social amenities, including even water to drink.
“Though John Mahama comes from here, and we are surrounded by water, we are thirsty. There is no drinking water at all,” the paramount Chief of the Yapei Traditional Area, Yapei Wura Soale Alhassan, told Nana Akufo-Addo.
Ghanaians, especially Northerners, should know that electing people into office should not be based on where one comes from but on the competence and track record of whoever comes to them for their votes.
Nana Akufo-Addo throughout his adult political life has shown that he is a man for all and not divisive as the NDC would want to portray him.
We believe the development policies he has been espousing, including the ‘One District, One Factory’ and ‘One Village, One Dam,’ will go a long way in helping Ghanaians, including the people from the North, in tackling many of the developmental challenges we are battling with, especially the escalating unemployment.
Unashamedly, when President Mahama and his people went to the northern part of the country to solicit for their votes, they could not tell the people what had become of SADA and the next plan they have for the development of the area. And that they sought to tell the people was that what Nana Addo and the NPP are espousing are not workable.
The Mahama-led government simply lacks the skills to think outside the box to bring out initiatives for the development of the country. What they are skilled in is to go every length to create the impression that proposals espoused by others are not feasible.
Under the leadership of former President Kufuor, Ghana got the National Health Insurance Scheme, the School Feeding Programme, the Free Maternal Care, the Capitation Grant, the National Youth Employment Programme, Metro Mass Transit, Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty, MASLOC, amongst others.
While the NDC and President Mahama are known to have been associated with expressing doubts about the feasibility of these programmes, they cannot be associated with similar initiatives after eight years of being in office.
The NPP under President Kufuor delivered on the promises it made in respect of the programmes listed above; the discerning Ghanaian can therefore no longer take the lies of the NDC when they claim the new initiatives being espoused by Nana Akufo-Addo cannot be implemented.