NPP UK Responds To Lens' Defamatory Headlines

We in NPP UK have read with grave concern a publication in Victor Smith?s Ghanaian Lens to the effect that Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is in London undergoing rehabilitation of some sort.

We consider that publication as unfortunate, ill-informed, typical NDC false personal attack machinery at work and it goes to buttress Nana Addo?s own assertion when he met and interacted with NPP UK and Ireland on Sunday 27th January that ?lies won?t win NDC votes?

We in NPP UK and Ireland therefore in no uncertain terms condemn the publication as false and it is deliberately intended to defame our presidential candidate or reduce him in the estimation of right thinking members of our society. We therefore call on the editors of Ghanaian Lens to withdraw the publication, apologise to Nana and distance themselves from the article as the sole view of one HE Akproh, if he ever exists.

The truth of the matter is that Nana Akufo-Addo was in London to offer his thanks and appreciation to his numerous fans here in UK and especially the Branch Party here in UK and Ireland for the support that was accorded him in the run up to the December Congress. Nana who is no stranger to the party in UK chose as a matter of principle to come here personally to offer his thanks as part of the nation and worldwide ?thank you message? that he has been delivering. He will also be visiting the party in USA and Canada as part of extending his links with the party in the diaspora. It is therefore a complete and utter lies coming from the gutter press of Lens that he is here in UK undergoing some kind of medication.

He has, while in UK , been undertaking a punishing schedule of meeting Ghanaian stake holders in his bid to lead a campaign that will bring all Ghanaians both home and abroad on board his new agenda for Ghana . It is therefore unthinkable that a media house will stoop so low as to use opportunistic and confused Kofi Wayo as its source of reference to publish such a defaming article about Nana Addo. Again it goes to show the level of desperation that the NDC and their agents will go to perpetuate lies about NPP officials. The NDC have become so sycophantically opportunistic that it is prepared to use the disgraced Kofi Wayo, whose fake credentials he brought into the country as an energy expert was found out by the NPP, as its source of propaganda. How much lower can the NDC and its operatives stoop?

Nana himself hit the nail on the head when he said to a large amount of cheering supporters in London on Sunday that the NPP does not intend to allow the National Democratic Congress ?to define what is relevant to the majority of Ghanaians? if, going by the barrage of mudslinging coming from the NDC publicity stables, the ?opposition intends to make false personal attacks the bread and butter of their campaign. The politics of insults and lies cannot be a winnable alternative to the NPP. This is the electoral message that Ghanaian voters will continue sending to the NDC until they take heed, hopefully.?

It is clear that the NDC and their crony media do not have any positive electoral message for Ghanaians other that mudslinging and personal attacks. So far they have made insults and lies as their stock in trade and so Nana Akufo-Addo had a message for them when he said the NDC leaders and activists are free to continue telling lies about the NPP, and leave the NPP with the necessary task of thinking, planning and acting for the good of the greatest number of Ghanaians. He said the NDC lies will be ?defeated by the good sense of the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian people?

The NDC have clearly been rocked with shock and disappointment with Nana Akufo-Addo?s election, knowing his political pedigree, and the fact that he is undeniably the most accomplished politician in Ghana yet to become a president. It is therefore not surprising that they threatened to go to court over Nana?s election which in their terms was rigged while they forget that they do not have any locus standi in an internal NPP business. The NDC have fired a warning shot about an election which did not concern them as being rigged it therefore begs the question whether they are going to accept their impending defeat in December 2008. But on the threat of violence in Ghana on the scale of Kenya as the NDC have threatened, Nana Akufo-Addo has reiterated that it was the NPP that fought for transparent election in Ghana ?and therefore we do not have the need to rig elections if we have fought for transparency?, He posed a concluding question that ?almost to a man, each member of the Electoral Commission was put in office by the NDC. They have conducted four successful elections, so what is there to be suspicious about them?? It is therefore important that we consign the NDC dirty propaganda, through its chief operative The Lens newspaper, to the gutter where it belongs and concentrate of the positive message that Nana Akufo-Addo delivered when he met the party in UK .

At the NPP UK meeting, he paid glowing tribute to President Kufuor?s administration in which he served as the Attorney General and Foreign Minister. He said, ?President Kufuor?s government has been the most successful that this country has had. A solid foundation of good governance, infrastructural development, social programmes and economic stability has been established. The task now is to build the kind of all-accommodating storey building of which our founding fathers dreamed and toiled.? He said ?our opponents say macro-economic stability is not an indication of prosperity, but I say without macro-economic stability there will be no prosperity? He called for a paradigm shift away from the Guggisberg economic model of making Ghana a raw material producing economy to a processing and service economy. Nana Addo who has consistently said he believed in the ?can do? spirit in Ghanaians said we must develop our economy in such a way that we in Ghana can become a successful black economy. Nana called for unity in NPP and assured members of a resounding victory in December because of NPP?s record in office. He urged all members to go home to register in March when the voters? register re-opens so that they can get the right to vote in December.

Responding to a question on the need to deal with past political excesses and human right abuses, Nana Addo who is a firm believer in rule of law, said the national Reconciliation Committee, which he helped set up as the then Attorney General, closed the matter. He said ?in the interest of the integrity of our nation, we said we put a line under it?

Nana Addo, who has since returned to Ghana , was accompanied by his wife Mrs. Rebecca Akufo-Addo.