Nana`s assurance to NPP supporters

``We shall be back in 2012``

Posted: The Chronicle Wednesday, May 27, 2009
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
The events that have characterized the almost six-months of President Mills and his National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration give the 2008 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo more than enough reason to believe that his party will be returned to power in the year 2012.
He has, therefore, asked the rank and file of the NPP to keep faith with the party since better days are yet to come.
Nana Addo was speaking to an emotionally charged and anxious crowd at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Hall in Osu, yesterday, where he took the opportunity make his personal assessment of the current and prevailing situation in the country. “Therefore I say, together with NPP members across the nation, no shaking! We shall be back!” he said.
He talked about how the NDC government has reneged on the numerous promises it made to Ghanaians during the 2008 electioneering campaign, and have rather focused their attention and energies on the seizure of cars, public places of convenience, harassment of political opponents, especially the members of the NPP among others.
He also touched on how the ruling government had virtually become helpless and insensitive to the plight of the masses, with their inability to control the depreciating value of the cedi against the United States Dollar and the other major world trading currencies, and the dramatic rise in the prices of goods and services, with the belief that this will inform the decision of Ghanaians in the next elections.
Instead of lightening the hardship that have been imposed on Ghanaians by an allegedly insensitive and uncaring NPP government, as then Candidate Mills promised Ghanaians during the election campaign, Nana Addo said “we have seen in this brief five-month period of NDC rule, even greater hardships being visited on our people.”
He wondered how the prices of Gari, which used to sell at GH ¢1 have risen to GH ¢1.60 per an ‘olonka’, while a tuber of yam which used to sell for GH ¢1.50 is now selling for GH ¢3.00, with products like maize now selling at ¢2.50 per an ‘olonka’, rice (50kg) GH ¢75.00, five fingers of plantain for GH ¢1.00, vegetable oil (1 litre) for GH ¢3.50 and tomatoes (four small fruits) for GH ¢1.00.
This, according to him, is the practical effect of the growing inflation and loss of confidence in Ghana’s economy.
In spite of all these, he said the NDC government had announced a whopping 14% increase in tuition fees for the country’s Universities for the next academic year, while loans have not been released though the semester have ended.
For the past five or so months, he noted that the leadership of the NPP has been strategizing to bring the party back to power, stressing “all of us in the leadership of our party are fully aware that unity in our ranks is vital to the prospects of the victory in 2012.”
According to Nana Addo, Ghanaians are very discerning and have braced themselves up to the tenets of democracy, and stressed that they will boot the NDC out of power in the next elections.
Even though the NPP has always welcomed competition for office as a bedrock principle of democracy, Nana Addo emphasized that well-meaning Ghanaians and the overwhelming majority of our rank and file hope that this time round, the competition will be conducted in a way that will facilitate reconciliation among competitors and their supporters, thereby reinforcing the unity of our party.”
Though he is confident of a return to power in 2012, Nana Addo openly admitted “we have much work to do.”