You are here: HomeOpinionsArticles2009 10 09Article 169931

Opinions of Friday, 9 October 2009

Columnist: Abdallah, Abdul Rahman

RE: NPP Demands Financial Accountability from Akufo-Addo

HAVE YOU ANY MIND OF YOUR OWN AT ALL?

To start with, the man’s name is Akufo-Addo and not Akufo Addo and you an alleged UP/NPP/PFP member should be familiar with this basic fact.

I normally do not make it a habit to comment on spurious and bogus articles from faceless cowards and nincompoops like you. I find it interesting that you provide only your name, if it is your name, to this article. I have found reason to say one, two, three words of fact to you because once again I expect a UP/NPP/PFP member to know better. That is if you are an NPP member in the true sense. I expect you to know that our party’s comeback in 2012 is a feat that requires all of us to logically grasp that our only enemy is the NDC, and launching attacks on members of our own party is pedestrian and mediocre, an act that makes you more NDC than NPP.

Your article, posted on Ghanaweb on Tuesday, 29 September 2009, sought to say that former President Kufuor gave Nana Addo millions of cash, most of which Nana refused to use for his campaign. I hope you are clear in your mind that if your comments are anything to go by, then the first legitimate question to ask is: where did Kufuor get the millions of dollars from? I am quite sure that in your hurried attempt to smear Nana Addo with allegations of misuse of campaign funds, you failed to think, if you have the brain capacity to do so, that the same accusation will level serious allegations of corruption against Kufuor, the man you would like the world to believe you are promoting, though I doubt whether that is your real intention. I am an ardent true and true activist of the NPP, and I know that Kufuor did not give Nana Addo millions of dollars for his campaign. Akufo-Addo’s campaign had a Finance Committee headed by the indefatigable Hackman Owusu-Agyemang. A simple phone call to Mr. Owusu-Agyemang would have brought you up to speed on what really transpired in terms of funding Nana’s campaign. Or was the ‘UP/NPP/PFP’ member scared of calling Hackman? You consistently made reference to a certain ‘general accounts committee of the NPP’ in your article and I wish you could see the expression of disgust and repugnance on my face this moment as I ask you: what creature is that? It is only a figment of your own imagination. The NPP has no such thing as the ‘general accounts’ committee, or maybe by NPP you did not mean the New Patriotic Party. I admit that Nana Addo run his campaign together with the NPP, you also need to appreciate that the mandate of soliciting and mobilizing funds for the campaign lay in the domain of the Finance Committee, which Committee did a fabulous job by making sure that in spite of the deliberate neglect of the campaign by some leading NPP members, Nana Addo still won the elections in the first round. You also mention in your piece of crap that Nana Addo is using the rest of the millions Kufuor gave him for his 2012 campaign at the expense of the functioning of some constituency offices. Incredible. Were you at Trade Fair at all? The 230 Constituencies were fully and duly represented at the Special Delegates Conference, the one that rectified amendments to portions of our party’s constitution and this is for your information, given that it is news to you. I am hearing for the first time and from you only that NPP Constituency offices in the regions are not functioning, and I find it rather interesting that even the General Secretary of our party, Nana Ohene Ntow does not know this.

In that your piece of crap, you cite Nana Addo as creating disunity and introducing factionalism in our party. Disunity? Do you live in Ghana at all? Nana Addo involved all, all the candidates who contested the 2008 Flag bearer position with him, in his campaign. He named Alan Kyeremanteng, the man who came closest to Nana Addo in that election as the Chairman of the Identifiable Groups Committee of the campaign. I have monitored Nana Addo’s comments before, during and after the general elections, and he has consistently called for peace and unity. At the Kotoka International Airport, he called for peace in our party. At Osu Presby, he called for unity and oneness in our party. At Alisa Hotel, he said that he respects the dissenting opinions and views in our party, but at the end of the day, all committed party members should respect the ultimate decision of the party leadership and rank and file. This was just before the Special Delegates Conference at the Trade Fair Centre. Two weeks ago at Akropong, he called on the people of Akropong to put Ghana first in all their endeavors, adding that “our collective contributions will shape our dear nation to become what we all desire it to be”. At Chereponi, he called on all, both NPP and NDC to allow peace to prevail, adding that “under no circumstance should any election whatsoever, lead to the shed of even a drop of blood in our country”. I bring all of these examples up because I fail to understand how anyone will be interested in the unity of our country in one breadth, and create factionalism in his own Party in another. Anytime Nana gets an opportunity, he calls for unity and peace. When you got the opportunity to post an article on the internet, you decided to insult him. Must you have battle in your heart forever? Do you hear Nana at all when he speaks?

My ‘sensible’ friend, you could have left out Nana Addo’s age in your crap. At least let us struggle to know where you are coming from. Nana Addo has for the past thirty years been in the frontline of Ghana’s politics, fighting together with others to make sure that Ghana will one more time become a democratic country. UNIGOV, Kumipreko, NPP, Attorney General, Foreign Affairs Minister, Nana has played a crucial role in the democratic credentials that President Obama recounted in his address to Ghana’s Parliament. I don’t think that it lies in your domain to sit on the internet and determine for the NPP, what is good. The NPP has since 1991, elected flag bearer’s through due procedure. Sometime next year, due procedure will be followed one more time in electing a flag bearer. You, Nana Kofi Amankwah, or whatever or whichever your name might ever be, do not know better than the rank and file of our party. The NPP believes in rewarding competence, loyalty and dedication and Congress will one more time speak based on these credentials. Our party people are not that myopic as you are to think that a young person must necessarily be our party’s flag bearer at the expense of competence and loyalty. To our party, competence matters more than age and I will humbly advise you to get that into your hard and rigid coconut head, in case you have one. When Nana Addo named Mustapha Hamid as his spokesperson and Dr. Bawumia as his running-mate, he demonstrated to us all his commitment to empowering competent youth, competent underlined. What use is it to our party if Alan Kyeremanteng is the only surviving President Special Initiative (PSI) in our country today? What happened to the oil palm, starch and garments sectors of the PSI?

I think that rather, Nana Addo deserves to be commended for his selfless nature. Has Amankwah ever heard of any corruption allegation against Nana Addo? Is it not interesting that the man who will not steal Ghana’s money will steal NPP’s money that was never given him?

Fellow Kukrudites, I am compelled in closing, to quote just three (3) sentences from Nana Kofi Amankwah’s article, and I bring these sentences in particular to your attention because I believe that the commitment and dedication of faceless cowards like him, to our party’s cause can only be calculated and judged by what they say. These are his words: “I have this message for all NPP members. You are the ones to be blame for Nana’s stupidity and the faction he has created within the current NPP. You guys need to wise up and stop him and his nonsense”. These are the words of the sensible Nana Kofi Amankwah, the man who ironically loves the NPP more than you and I do. When I heard for the first time Nana’s Believe in Ghana advert on radio, I felt proud to be part of the NPP. In that advert, Nana Addo reiterates how there is the need to broaden the horizon in order to help all Ghanaians realize their dreams. He mentioned how he sees the urgency in waging and winning the war against poverty in our country. He mentioned that “to achieve social justice for every Ghanaian, whether rural or urban dweller, the only logical step to the next level is to intensify our efforts in pursuing a development agenda that is broad-based, inclusive and sustainable. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, then it cannot save the few who are rich. I believe in leading by example. I believe in the cohesive richness and the manifest destiny of this great nation’s diversity. I believe in the can-do spirit of our people. I believe we can defeat mediocrity. We are a peace loving people who are among the best on this planet”. These are the words of Nana Akufo-Addo, the man Mr. Amankwah describes as stupid. There are two reasons why Amankwah will describe Nana as such: he is either too stupid himself to understand the vision of Nana Addo or he has no brain of his own. I leave his stupid fate to the ever undisputable sense of judgment of the very true members of the NPP.

Will Nana Kofi Amankwah ever learn how to back the winning horse?

Abdul Rahman Abdallah

Abdullrahmann1@gmail.com