NPP to campaign under a platform of One Ghana, One Dagbon

Following last week's discovery of the NDC campaign strategy to exploit the Dagbon tragedy in the December elections, NPP Youth Leader, Mustapha Hamid has declared that his party is going to campaign on a platform of "One Ghana, One Dagbon".

It would be recalled that last week ADM and other press houses exposed NDC campaign "T" shirts that exploited the image of the late Ya Na as a Dagbon vote-getting ploy.

In an exclusive interview with ADM just before the Eid-ul-Adha break, Mr. Hamid expressed great "misgivings about the NDC's lack of sensitivity" in using the late Ya Na's image to campaign in an area which is under a state of emergency.

He explained that "Dagbon is one unit within the Republic" and "any party that would so openly try to divide it for electoral purposes is undermining the very foundation of the nation."

The onus, he said, is now on Professor Mills, "if he is the man of peace he claims to be" to come out "openly and unequivocally and condemn his party members who want to create confusion in Dagbon for electoral gain."

He said the government and the "good people of Dagbon with the assistance of some patriotic Ghanaians have kept the peace thus far" and so "what the NDC is doing now is nothing but sabotage against the state."

The only way, he said, Ghanaians will absolve the NDC is when they come out openly to dissociate themselves from the "T shirts saga".

The "One Ghana, One Dagbon" platform, he said is vital, because that particular traditional area is one of the most distressed parts of the country which would require every Dagomba to help redress.

He cited the "kayayee"girls in Accra and elsewhere who are mostly Dagomba girls as an example of the distress that Dagbon is in. "For this reason alone, Dagombas have to unite and so any party that tries to divide them as the NDC is doing, cannot be interested in the welfare of the area".

Since the story broke last week, a number of NDC spokesmen have tried to stammer a few excuses, but have rather ended up compounding their party's complicity in what is clearly a provocative act in an area under a state of emergency.

An act punishable by law.