New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential aspirant Nana Akufo-Addo has said there cannot be division within the main opposition party after polling a whopping 80.81% in the mini congress to be among the top five to contest for the flagbearership race in October.
He said for party executives to vote overwhelmingly for him is a clear sign of unity within the ranks of the NPP.
Speaking to the delegates of the party who voted in the August 31 Special Electoral College, Nana Akufo-Addo explained that result of the election is a clear indication of the fact that the “party is focused on winning power and very much united.”
An equally resounding victory for him in the October 18 primary Akufo-Addo said, will send a clear political message to Ghanaians that “the party is emphatically and solidly united behind a particular candidate and its leader waiting to go into battle in 2016. That emphatic victory provides us with a base going into the election.”
He appealed to the delegates who did not vote for him in the Special Electoral College to vote for him this time around, urging them to join him and “work together to send the NPP into the Jubilee House.”
On the claim being made by some persons that the 780 delegates, who voted in the Special Electoral College, are not representative of the choice of the grassroots of the NPP, Nana Addo said that “I don’t know anyone who has a better connection to the grassroots than constituency chairmen, especially as you were elected barely a year ago by these same polling station executives. I believe that on the 18th of October, that matter will be answered.”
“With hard work and proper organization, this time we are going to make sure we don’t get cheated. Twenty seven will not become ‘twenty seven zero’. We are going to make sure that all the loopholes are plugged, so that at the end of the day, a declaration will be made that the NPP presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has won the presidency,” he said, to a rapturous applause from the delegates.
An Akufo-Addo presidency, he said, will allow Ghana to begin the task for the transformation of Ghana.
“(President) Kufuor took us there. Instead of the NDC building on it, they have taken us back. God-willing, when we come back at the beginning of 2017, the task for transforming our country, giving our country an economy that will allow our young people to get work, an economy that will change the dynamics of the North will commence. Our agriculture will begin to flourish again, and the gap between north and south, which is the burning ambition of my life, will be bridged in our generation,” he said.
Nana Addo assured the delegates that despite the growing pessimism Ghanaians are having about the state of affairs of the nation, “I believe we can change Ghana. Many years from now our children of today will say our fathers and mothers changed Ghana and they did so when Akufo-Addo was President of Ghana.”
“I am not in politics to fill my pockets, to enrich myself or my family or to steal your money. That’s not why I am in politics. I am in politics because I have a vision and a dream of what this country can be and I want to work to make that dream possible. I am asking you to give me the opportunity, support me. Where it is necessary to criticize me, do not hesitate, point out when things are going wrong. Give me your positive enthusiasm and let’s go forward together. We can make it and make Ghana truly the Black Star of Africa,” he said.