Why Nduom and the CPP would win the 2008 Election

Dearest Amma Ghana

You are growing up in a world with many opportunities than your grandparents had – but in some ways it is a more dangerous and less secure world. It is a world where there is no such thing as a job for life. So every new skill you learn, every qualification you get, will make you more adaptable and more able to change jobs and fulfill your potential.

Ghana is a great nation. A country where we can watch the most exciting sport – African Cup of Nations, Horse racing, Premiership football, where you can listen to the best highlife and hiplife - Daddy Lumba, Kwadwo Antwi, Nana Ampadu, Batman, Reggie Rockstone, Obrafour, tinny and the rest. A nation that leads Africa in fashion, research and so on. A nation blessed with rich languages, traditions, values, customs, fine sense of humour and hospitality.

Never let anyone say there is a better place to live than Ghana. But Amma Ghana never let others tell you that Ghana cannot be better. We are a country of talent, but a country that often does not let that talent to flourish. At times we seem to be a nation that has become old, tired and resentful. Relying on our past as a great nation long before you were born, rather than working to make us great nation in the future. Reluctant to face new ideas. Reluctant to take risks. We are no longer a country that, in the words of the opening to “star trek”, wants “to boldly go”. We are less adventurous, daring, forward looking.

I only have to watch you throwing yourself into new activities – acting, playing piano or swimming – to realise that the energy and fearlessness of young people is the energy to make our beloved Ghana once again a country of enthusiasm, new ideas and opportunity.

But if we are to take risks as a country and become envied for today’s achievements rather than those of yesterday, we must support the doers, the innovators, the young entrepreneurs, the wisdom of older people, the creative talent in each of us. We must put in place the opportunities that allow people to get on, and the pillars of security that enable people to be adventurous. That is the way to greater prosperity. It is on this account that your daddies, like all Progressives are supporting Papa Kwesi Nduom and the CPP.

Paa Kwesi Nduom’s new and revitalized CPP would want a clean environment with garbage collected regularly, filth and dust controlled and malaria overcome. He want to build a health care system that is affordable for all Ghanaians. This health service will become a pillar of security. He wants Nurses to nurse patients and doctors to get on and do what they were trained to do rather than turning our hospitals into detention centers with them presiding over as Detention Officers. Paa Kwesi Nduom wants entrepreneurs and innovators to get the backing they need from their government so as to get their ideas off the ground. Paa Kwesi Nduom wants a Ghana where every child has the chance to go to school, a good school for that matter, where they learn to read, write and add up, but, more than that, where they learn and use their imagination. Paa Kwesi Nduom has pledged to build more Schools so that all children will go to schools with roofs over the building, books on desks, equally important, classrooms with teachers, teachers who are well motivated and up to the task of training the country’s future leaders. The standard-design schools to be built throughout the country will have toilet facilities, playgrounds, libraries, kitchens, eating place, classrooms, teachers quarters, etc. Paa Kwesi Nduom’s led CPP government will be setting standards in our schools and will find ways to improve standards in our schools.

Paa Kwesi Nduom wants a Ghana where people have faith once gain in politics – where they believe that politicians are not just in it for themselves but are MPs because they wish to serve their constituents and their country. Paa Kwesi Nduom wants to strengthen our people, the Ghanaian people; he is for total emancipation of all women. Paa Kwesi Nduom wants a country where all its constituents feel part of, where all parts of the country are listened to and have the chance to make decisions that will affect their own lives. That is why he plans to have District, Municipal and Metropolitan Chief Executives elected directly by the people.

As a true Patriot, Paa Kwesi Nduom wants Ghana to be leading in Africa, whether it is Ecowas or the African Union, so that we can shape Africa and the African Union to suit Ghana’s interest.

Paa Kwesi Nduom wants a Ghana where people grow up to value friendship, kindness, love decency as well as material wealth. That means responsibility to others as much as to ourselves, compassion as well as ambition, a strong and decent society. Not broken and pulled apart but one nation.

Paa Kwesi Nduom wants all children to grow up with the idealism that we can change society for the better; that things do not have to be as they always have been but can change, that power, wealth and opportunity need not be held in a few hands but can be shared among all the people.

Paa Kwesi Nduom wants you my little flower to grow up in a united society, held together by common values of decency, tolerance and respect. A society in which every individual has a stake. A society where you are able to fulfill your full potential.

There is no greater responsibility than that which a parent has to a child. My duties as a father come first. But it is to help build that better Ghana and that united society that Paa Kwesi Nduom and all the other progressives like Ladi Nylander are into politics.

Love,

Dad.

Written by Ben Attah Hayford (bkhayford@yahoo.com)