Free SHS Now – Akufo-Addo

Published in Daily Guide on September 17, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu 

HOW ARE YOU? The two leading contenders for the Presidency, President john Mahama and Nana Akufo-Addo at the Owdira festival last Friday at Akropong

Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has rubbished the argument being advanced by members of the National Democratic Congress that it will take the country another 20 years to be able to provide free secondary education.
Speaking at a well-attended rally at the Karikari Brobbey Park at Dansoman in the Ablekuma South constituency over the weekend, Nana Addo indicated that it was possible for Ghana to implement a free education policy now and for that matter, he would not join in the thinking of his detractors in the NDC who argue that it was a mission impossible.
The event was to round up his ‘Hope Restoration’ tour of the Greater Accra Region and to also launch the constituency’s campaign.
Places Nana Addo visited with the NPP parliamentary candidate, Ursula Owusu, included Mamprobi, Korle Bu, Chorkor, Agege and Dansoman before the rally started.
With the free education fire catching up with Ghanaians and admission by NDC operatives that it could derail the party’s chances of retaining power, the ruling party’s propagandists had launched vicious attacks on the NPP’s free SHS policy.
But Nana Akufo-Addo said the free SHS would be coming on live.
Nana Addo, who spoke extensively in the local Ga language often interlaced with Twi and English, wondered why members of the NDC government, especially President John Dramani Mahama and his Education Minister Lee Ocran, were claiming that it was not achievable, stressing that had it not been for a free education policy, President Mahama would not have risen to his current position.
Lee Ocran particularly said because Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah could not do it, nobody could.
Nana Addo wondered: “Why would he now turn around and say it is not possible when it got to the turn of others?”
However, the NPP flagbearer said, “I am not the least surprised because they are blowing huge sums of the taxpayers’ monies and doling out some of those monies to people, for virtually no work done, yet when we need money for an important programme such as the free SHS they say there is no money, but they are giving freebies to their cronies.”
According to him, the NPP had taken time to do extensive consultations and calculations and come to the conclusion that “we can do it”.
“There is money for us to do it and we will do it too”, he said, to a spontaneous applause from the crowd.
Promises
“As I have said time and again, when you vote for me to become President I will deliver the promise of free secondary education,” he noted, insisting that “the days when education was the preserve of those who could afford it, should be made a thing of the past, for every Ghanaian child to be able to go to school”.
He decried the poor conditions in which Ghanaians were living, indicating that “things have become very tough. There is no money, there are no jobs, industries are collapsing; it is because of these things that I have come to help change this government and replace it with one that can do the work.”
The NPP flagbearer asked Ghanaians to bank their hopes on him to put the economy back on a sound footing with a promise to re-introduce the Fisheries Ministry when given the mandate.
Everywhere he went in the constituency, a minute’s silence was observed in memory of the late Ben Brown, an NPP stalwart in the constituency who recently passed away.
Present were party bigwigs including former Mayor of Accra Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson who is neck-deep in the campaign to unseat Information Minister Fritz Baffour as MP for the area and others including former Finance Minister Yaw Osafo Maafo and Dr Nyaho Nyaho Tamakloe, former Ambassador to Serbia.
The rest were Sheik Ibrahim Cudjoe Quaye, the ‘Agbenaa’ man who stormed the platform with a bell in hand, and claimed he was tolling the bell to usher the NDC into opposition.
This time around, he had a new slogan- ‘Lootu Lootu’, taunting the NDC as a bunch of looters of state coffers.
NPP Parliamentary Candidate for Ablekuma South, Ursula Owusu, among others, promised to help provide access to quality education by lobbying for the improvement in educational infrastructure in the constituency when voted into power.

Konadu For President: JJ Joins NDP

Published in Daily Guide on September 13, 2012
 By Charles Takyi-Boadu & Fred Tettey Alarti-Amoako

THE DIE IS CAST! Rawlings joins forces as NDP building is outdoored at Kokomlemle, in Accra.

It is now confirmed that former President Jerry John Rawlings, founder of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), has deserted his party to join forces with the newly formed National Democratic Party (NDP).
Interim General Secretary of the NDP, Dr Joseph Mamboa-Rockson, dropped the hint during an encounter with journalists in Sunyani that Mrs. Rawlings was gearing up to contest the flagbearership position of the party for the December elections.
Credible sources have told DAILY GUIDE that former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was flown into the country on Tuesday night in the private jet of Ibrahim Mahama, the younger brother of President John Dramani Mahama, to plead with Mr. Rawlings to campaign for the NDC.
But Mr. Rawlings was said to have maintained his position not to campaign for his once-cherished NDC, leaving General Obasanjo and his sponsors in a state of disappointment.
According to sources, President Mahama had pleaded with former President Obasanjo, former President John Kufuor’s good friend, to broker peace for Rawlings to join the NDC campaign.
On arrival in Accra on Monday, DAILY GUIDE learnt that President Obasanjo requested to hold a meeting with President Kufuor before meeting President Mahama and later President Rawlings, after which the Nigerian strongman was driven to Ada for another round of meeting.
According to sources, Mr Rawlings was to embark on a nationwide tour to explain to opinion leaders why he could not be part of the NDC campaign.
He started off with a meeting with the Awomefia of Anlo, Togbui Sri III, on Tuesday.
According to Dr Mamboa-Rockson, the NDC founder’s decision to attend the recent special national delegates’ congress of the NDC with some NDP chieftains was because “we were there for him to show them that these are my other children apart from the NDC”.

Joseph Bediako

The NDP chief scribe stated that Mr. Rawlings’ presence at the congress was not to show support for the NDC, insisting that the issue of whether or not the former President would campaign for the NDP or the NDC would be clearer when the NDP was officially launched.
Konadu’s Decision
Mrs. Rawlings, who is also the President of the 31^st December Women’s Movement (DWM), is among three persons who have expressed interest in contesting the flagbearership race of the NDP.
Dr Mamboa-Rockson’s visit to the Brong Ahafo Region was to commiserate with the Interim Regional Chairman of the NDP, Kofi Vinyo, who was recently attacked by some persons suspected to be members of the NDC.
Out of the three persons who have expressed interest in the position, Dr Mamboa-Rockson said, two, including Nana Konadu, were women. He claimed that the former First Lady stood tall among the presidential candidates presented by the various political parties.
Apart from that, he said “she is the most celebrated politician in Ghana today”, insisting Nana Konadu had done a lot in terms of organising, sensitising and giving women the mouthpiece socially, politically and economically.
He was of the belief that having her on the party’s ticket would boost its chances of winning the elections with about 85% margin.
Yesterday, workers were seen busily putting finishing touches to a newly acquired headquarters of NDP at Kokomlemle in Accra.
The one-storey office facility, which is located on the Faanofa Street, close to the traffic intersection near Joy FM, was being painted in NDP colours.
The NDP is expected to go to congress at the end of this month to elect a presidential candidate for the upcoming elections slated for December 7, 2012.
But General-Secretary of the party said grassroots supporters of the NDP were calling for Nana Konadu to join the race and therefore, he said, the party would be honoured to have her as their presidential candidate.
NDP Final Certificate
Barring any last minute hitches, the Electoral Commission (EC) is set to issue a final certificate to the NDP tomorrow, Friday.
Dr Mamboa-Rockson said officials of the Commission called its (NDP) offices to inform them they were satisfied with the documents and information provided so far.
The party was said to have dispatched seven groups going round the country to mobilise its supporters for what promises to be a vigorous campaign ahead of the upcoming elections.
He has since confirmed the involvement of the Rawlingses (Mr and Mrs Rawlings) in the party, saying, “We have the support of both Rawlingses.”
A leading member of NDP, Joseph Bediako, insisted Mr. Rawlings would not campaign for the NDC and that the NDC should stop tickling itself.
“I can say it on authority from my sources within that he is not going to campaign for them,” he said, adding that “anybody who tells you we are going back to join the NDC is a liar.”
He swore heaven and earth to quit politics should the NDP go into any alliance with the ruling NDC before or after the elections.
That was because “NDC as a party stinks, nobody will buy it if you put it up for sale and you will be embarrassed if you attempt to market it.”
For him, what they were only waiting for was for the EC to supervise the process to elect substantive national, regional and constituency executives.
“We have put all structures in place for a smooth take off,” he stated.

It’s My Voice

: NDC Guru Admits Dirty Plot

Published in Daily Guide on September 6, 2012

By Charles Takyi-Boadu 

Yaw Boateng Gyan

National Organiser of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Yaw Boateng Gyan had one hell of a time yesterday in his attempt to defend an audio recording in which he was heard hatching a diabolical plan with some party faithful to fix the election for the NDC, come December 7, 2012 when Ghanaians head to the polls.
He admitted being the one whose voice was captured on the secret tape but tried to justify the vicious scheme, which could plunge the country into chaos, exposing the NDC agenda of visiting mayhem on Ghanaians during the election.
With the revelation of the ruling party’s dirty plot, the late President John Atta Mills and lately his successor, President John Mahama’s call for peaceful polls could not be anything but a mockery.
An obviously distraught Yaw Boateng Gyan who could not bear the heat of the criticism that followed the revelation of the dangerous plot in the wake of the release of the tape, hopped from one radio station to the other trying strenuously without success to justify his outrageous intentions.
“Well, I am not like some other people, I will just say that yes, that is my voice but mind you, it wasn’t for any bad intentions,” he said.
On the said tape recording which is currently being circulated in sections of the media, Mr. Boateng Gyan, who had often exhibited a holier-than-thou attitude, was among others heard planning a dangerous scheme with some members of the NDC on how to get them enlisted into the supposed ‘Special Forces’ to intimidate and cow their political opponents into fear during the elections, including stealing of ballot boxes on election day.
He spoke of a plan to get these NDC footsoldiers identification cards that would make them look like operatives of the National Security to enable them to move freely to carry out their obviously vicious intentions during the election period.
He said if the plot backfires on Election Day, the ruling party will blame the violence on the opposition NPP, particularly its presidential candidate Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, citing his ‘all-die-be-die’ mantra.
Speaking on Adom FM’s ‘Adwaso Nsem’ morning show, Mr. Boateng Gyan, who is now battling to salvage his dented reputation said, “This was a conversation with such persons to find out those behind the formation of NDP and NDC persons who want to leave to the new party so we can approach them and talk to them to rescind their decisions.
Everybody knows the people who make up the NDP are all members of the NDC, and as a party we have to be concerned about people leaving our party” whilst insisting that “the conversation was about NDP, which had just received provisional certificate, not NPP at all.”
“I am the National Organiser of a national party with two deputies, and we cannot be everywhere, so it is only natural that we have people who go out to gather information for us. Any party that does not have such a mechanism is not serious.”

Vicious Plot
In the said conversation, the NDC National Organiser is heard speaking in Twi language, saying, “The other time we were talking about this Special Forces, we haven’t abandoned it. If you are there it does not mean you cannot still work for us.
We will send you there, you will be trained and come back and will be working.
When the need arises, we will call you, whatever duties will be assigned you then you’d come back and be working for the party.”
He went on to state that “during the time that we were in power, those who are following the President now, they were at the party headquarters, they were soldiers but they were at the party headquarters.
You ask Kofi Yeboah, he was serving as a guard at the party headquarters so you could be there and later come and serve.”
In that regard, Mr Boateng Gyan told the young men, “Those of you who don’t have the strength to serve in that capacity, you should make up your mind. But this is the immediate thing that we want you to follow.”
He mentioned the name of Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Dr Kwabena Duffuor as the one to provide funding, obviously from the national kitty, for the execution of the project.
“When they gave me the money and I was leaving, it was the Finance Minister himself who called me and called the Finance Director, and told him that as for you, you always come here talking about somebody, you have never spoken about yourself.
So I said I have some boys I am working with but now it is hard getting them planted.
So he said okay, bring this, bring that and let me get some money for you so that you can give it to them,” he stated.
He said, “As and when we pay and everybody knows that these people have been paid, I am sure they will increase it.
So for all you know, in about two, three or four months, God willing if we win these elections and I know we will win, you will see that all of you will be married or something then you will see what jobs will be assigned you.”
He explained that his job as National Organizer of the ruling party was to ensure that the NDC wins the elections “and some grassroots members have expressed interest to get themselves employed in some of these government institutions and by way of motivation assuring them that we will work it out on merit for those who will be enlisted.”
Justification 
“I don’t think it is anything out of the role of somebody like me to assure people because we are in this country and when Asamoah Boateng declared that he alone initiated the enlistment of about 300 people for his constituency and that is not a crime to me,” said Mr. Boateng Gyan.
But Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin North, Kennedy Ohene Agyapong, who is leading the crusade to expose the diabolical plan, insisted Yaw Boateng Gyan and the NDC have a dangerous plan and stressed the need for all well-meaning Ghanaians to be vigilant during the election since they intend to rig.
By Charles Takyi-Boadu