NPP Targets Mills’ Persona

-With smear campaign

By Francis Xavier Tuokuu

“There is no longer any shred of doubt in the minds of many discerning Ghanaians that the biggest opposition party in the country, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is hell-bent on winning power by hook or crook”, a Political analyst has observed.

The NPP, according to a political analyst at one of the nation’s top Universities and who wants to remain anonymous, “is working very hard to paint President Mills as evil, a hypocrite and devilish” but this, he says will fail as Ghanaians are a very discerning people.

The reasons are not farfetched, he averred; “after a thorough assessment of the situation pertaining on the ground, they see the integrity and high moral aptitude of President Mills proving by the day to be the undoing of their candidate, Nana Akuffo Addo”

“They have therefore found the least opportunity to find faults with the persona of the president as rather equally responsible for acts of omission or commission of agencies in the discharge of state required duties, and indeed, in some instances, on natural occurrence, such as accidents on the roads, lakes and factories and or the weather...

“Hardly does an opportunity present itself than one hears apologists and functionaries of the New Patriotic Party attacking the personality of President Mills. He is either callous, a hypocrite, a thief or ‘nyaatwum’”. He opined.

He recounted many disparaging comments made by NPP officials and sympathizers pouring scorn on the Good Old Professor of Law. “The General Secretary of the NPP, Kwadwo Owusu Afriyie also known in political circles as Sir John described last year’s Easter festivities (under President Mills) as the worse ever experienced by the nation because the country did not witness the usual Good Friday rains in Kumasi.

Unfortunately for Sir John, he said, there was a heavy downpour with thunderstorm in Kumasi and surrounding towns on Good Friday and Holy Saturday this year.

The political analyst added that even if the lights goes off or water fails to flow, the NPP put the blame personally on President Mills, disregarding the fact that the constitution of Ghana has empowered various institutions of state to address issues of that nature.

According to him, NPP National Chairman, Jake Obetsebi-Lamptey was quoted saying President John Atta-Mills is a hypocrite who “pretends to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, qualities and standards that he does not actually have. “Even today that he is being exposed by the embarrassment of the gap between what he says and what he does or is done in his name, the President and his army of praise singers are still trying shamelessly to tell us that he is humble, God fearing, caring, peaceful and incorruptible”.

The Young Patriots, a wing of the NPP also in a release recently said they will continue to expose the serial and pathological hypocrisy of Professor John Atta Mills to the good people of Ghana,

“The President and his party are so paranoid about Nana Akufo Addo…. The Achievements Nana Addo has chalked throughout his life as an astute politician, Statesman; lawyer and UN Security Council chairperson is incomparable to Prez. Mills’s Alchohol-galloping and wife molesting behavior…”

New Patriotic Party (NPP) Member of Parliament (MP) for Asokwa in Kumasi, Maxwell Kofi Jumah, on his part has likened President John Atta Mills to a thief, alleging that the NDC stole the 2008 polls. He stated that President Mills stole the 2008 elections to become the president of Ghana, noting that but for the rigging; Mills couldn’t have been a president.

According to the analyst, President Mills may be taking Obama’s admonishing that Africa should endeavour “to build strong institutions that work” if we are to make any progress in our democratic experiment. This in his opinion seems to suggest that the NPP cannot clearly contend with the level of devolution of powers and responsibility to the institutional levels”.

On the on-going biometric voter registration which has been characterized by violence in some areas, he said the NPP have often repeated that “either he (President Mills) doesn’t have any authority over his own aides or he is deceiving the Ghanaian people when he says he wants a peaceful process. You see no effort being made to bring to book those responsible for the violence, especially in the light of the regrettable statements made by the head of the police service that the police, are allegedly in his words, going to be neutral”.

But the political analyst referred the NPP to what President Mills said “there are some who also think that the President should be directly in charge of enforcement of law. Unfortunately, the President is not a law enforcement officer; the President can’t be a prosecutor. These are not powers which have been conferred on the President”.

According to him, President Mills’ government has achieved single digit inflation consistently for nearly two years which eluded the NPP in eight years. “The successful implementation of the single spine salary structure (SSSS) culminating in increase in the wage bill from 2 billion-to- 5 billion Ghana cedis, various road construction across the country, elimination of schools under trees among others are some of the good works of president Mills”, he added.

He said may be because the NPP have no campaign message for Ghanaians that is why they are doing all they can to equalize president Mills with their candidate, Nana Akuffo Addo’s credibility challenges.