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General News of Wednesday, 19 September 2007

Source: Andy Kankam

Atta Mills Heads North On Friday

The NDC flagbearer, John Evans Atta Mills, will on Friday head for the northern part of the country to commiserate with victims of the floods that have rocked that part of the country.

The Director of Operations of the Atta Mills Campaign Team, Nii Lantey Vanderpuije, has been telling The Ghanaian Lens that the learned Professor, who has always reacted most timeously to situations demanding humanitarian assistance, had been monitoring the situation and has been offering various forms of assistance to the victims through his people on the ground there. “But the time has come for him to be personally present at the place to commiserate with the people. You see, we are all human beings, the material assistance we get in times of need are most welcome, but beyond these material assistance, we need the human factor, the comforting word, a shoulder to weep on, and a leader to assure us of the way forward,” Nii Lantey observed.

“Prof. Mills is going there to do just that. In times like these, our nation and its citizens really need our leaders to be there for us and with us,” Nii Lantey stated.

Meanwhile, many Ghanaians have described as a show of insensitivity, President Kufuor’s departure from the shores of the country at a time that some of our citizens are struggling for survival from the effects of the yet-to-subside floods up North.

Pointing to the practise elsewhere, where Presidents and other leaders rush home at the occurrence of the slightest humanitarian situation, most people who have been calling into and/or txt-ing to the various radio programmes in the capital have been critical of the President for showing insensitivity at the plight of his fellow citizens and choosing to go globetrotting.

This is not the first time that President Kufuor left the shores of the country at the time that some of our compatriots were grieving. It would be recalled that in the midst of the public anguish over the May 19th Stadium disaster, President Kufuor calmly emplaned and left Ghana.