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Opinions of Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Columnist: Mifetu, Seth

Bogus state of the nation address divulges disaster Akuffo-Addo.

By Seth Mifetu.

It is remarkable to note that, somewhere in the solid surface part of the earth, Dwarf want to be President.

Permit me to go straight to the point by setting the record straight and right for the good people of Ghana who in unilateral declaration bestow their inalienable right on the heavy shoulders of His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama to pilot their interests and represent them in all matters locally and internationally. This people represent the majority of Ghanaians and deserved to be told the truth about the state of their Nation.
It’s in line with this and in accordance with Article 67 of the 1992 constitution under the fourth republic of Ghana that the humble and listening Present, John Dramani Mahama stood before the august representative arm of government and presented to the fourth republic, the first ever spectacular true State of the Nation Address on the 25th day of February in the year of our Lord 2016.

The gentle Commander in Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces in a selfless and humble manner, in respect of accounting to the people through the holistic Nation Address touches on so many sectors of the economy. Vividly expatiated to the sovereign Ghanaians whose mandates he serves.

He elaborated on how far our elongated survival journey has brought us to as people. He told the good people of Ghana about the sectors that are doing well and the sectors that are facing challenges. He made known of the unprecedented development gain under his three years administration which is visible for all and sundry; and also lay bare the cogent steps taken by his government to subjugate the Nation’s challenges.

This is what the main opposition, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) failed to understand. And quickly came out with bogus one sided state of the nation address which in fact supposed to be NPP response.

I am not surprised at the wrong heading of the Akuffo-Addo’s speech because he is known for deviating from generally accepted norms. He was the same person as Attorney General who filed the case, “The President verses Tsatsu Tsikata” instead of “The people or the republic verses Tsatsu tsikata”. He was the same “good” lawyer who became Attorney General but failed to know that Fast Track Court was illegitimate to tried respected Tsatsu Tsikata until the legal heavy weight champion, Tsatsu Tsikata declares the Fast Track Court unconstitutional.

Akuffo-Addo in his so called “Real state of the Nation Address”, try hard to make the President unpopular, but it appears that Akuffo-Addo rather exposed his disarray.

The good works of President John Mahama have made him a seed that no matter how deep you bury him, he will germinate.

Akuffo-Addo stated that, under the leadership of President Kufuor (2001-2009) Ghana made significant strides without the benefit of oil revenues, economic growth increased from 3.7% to 8.4% in 2008, even in the face of a global economic and financial crisis in 2007/8. He goes on and on, and you realized that he was only quoting the same lies that Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia said in 2015 press conference in response to NDC 2015 Budget as he compared the economy performance under NPP and NDC. And for the same statistic, Dr. Bawumia was exposed by a fine gentleman Mr. Moses K. Mensah, NDC New York Chapter Chairman under the headline “Gargantuan lie under the cover of PhD-NDC New York branch chairman exposes Dr. Bawumia”. Please you can Google it and see for yourself. This is the link http://www.modernghana.com/news/660023/1/gargantuan-lies-under-the-cover-of-phd-ndc-new-yor.html

The young brilliant Mr. Moses K. Mensah’s Economic analysis revealed that NPP did not face any crisis in 2007/8, and that, the global recession started in December 2007 and its effect in developing economies started in 2009 when NDC was in power. With the real GDP growth statistic from IMF- World Bank Economic Outlook; database Oct. 2014, he made it known that according to IMF, NDC grow the economy by 15% in 2011 and 8.8% in 2012. You can see clearly that both Dr. Bawumia’s response to 2015 NDC Budget and Akuffo-Addo’s speech on the economy did not account for the huge HIPC money that NPP government received. It is significant to note that; NDC, in the face of power crisis had average economic growth of 7.2% in 7 years (2009-2015) which is higher than NPP’s average economic growth of 5.8% in 8 years (2001-2008).

Apart from the above, NDC achieved single digit inflation for 30 months while NPP record single digit for only one (1) month. And Akuffo-Addo did not tell his followers of that data.

Akuffo-Addo did not also tell Ghanaians that NPP had cocaine and sakawa economy where as cocaine business was booming and sakawa was soaring. He also did not tell Ghanaians that our national outstanding debt was forgiven under President Kufuor’s reign and that NPP did not pay any debt but rather enjoyed immense foreign in-flow, (HIPC money).

With all this, one could expect the NPP to grow the economy with double digits but they failed and left office leaving debt behind.

Hon. Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the indefatigable General Secretary of the United NDC have many times advice the NPP that, “people living in glass house do not throw stone”. Yet Akuffo-Addo refused to head to that sagacious advice as he maliciously accuses President Mahama of corruption. He touches on cases such as metro mass branding, GYEEDA, etc, which have been to court and people found guilty were subjected to the full rigorous of the law. Even Myjoyonline at the last quarter of 2015 reported that GHC40, 000m has been retrieved from those case and government promises to retrieve every penny misappropriated.

The President told Parliament that, the branding of the metro mass buses was probed and its finding was that, excess money went in to it and those involved have been made to pay back that excess money to the state.
Was Akuffo-Addo not living in this world when it was published worldwide by Transparency International (T.I) that Ghana and Senegal were the only Country in the sub-Sahara Africa truly fighting corruption and making impact?

Akuffo-Addo at the first place has no moral justification to accuse Ghana’s true President of Corruption. He Akuffo-Addo was the defacto President during Kufuor’s administration and under his watch, corruption flourished. We saw corruptions such as Hotel de wawa, Ghana @50, renovation of Kufuor’s private house, the NTC loan, diversion of HIPC money to fund NPP propaganda machine, the 10% kick back from contractors, the cars and the houses for Ghana@50 were all looted by NPP’S. NPP promised Ghanaians zero tolerance for corruption yet they open the flood gate for corruption, injected corruption in to all institutions. By wikileak, President Kuffuor is worldwide known as king ping of corruption.

Akuffo-Addo also touched on the recent Kintampo accident by saying “according to the medical superintendent of the Kintampo government hospital, where all the victims of the accident were sent, Dr. Bismark Owusu Ofosu, who spoke to the BBC’S Sammy Darko, said some victims of the accident who were brought in alive died because the Hospital lacked some vital logistics and medicine”. If this is not one of Akuffo-Addo’s fabrications, then, Dr. Bismark Owusu Ofosu have to be arrested because when the victims were brought alive, he should have referred them to other Hospital that have the logistics and medicine than to keep them and watch them died.
The Hospital was there and operational during President Kuffuor/Akuffo-Addo’s regime and they did not provided logistics and medicine for the Hospital.

Now, why is Akuffo-Addo making politics with a tragic accident that has course many hearts to bleed? Is it not fair to say that Akuffo-Addo is insensitive to our national grief? He will say or do anything that he deem necessary to bring him to power.

Akuffo-Addo did not mention the gruesome murder of NPP MP, J.B. Danquah-Adu let alone asked for a minute of silence for him. Why? Was it because Hon. J.B. Danquah-Adu was Kuffuor’s faction just as Paul Afoko, Kwabena Agyepong, Sammy Crabbe and others? That Akuffo-Addo doesn’t care? But he care for Kintampo accident victims? That is the irony of Akuffo-Addo that needs to be unraveled. In fact, Akuffo-Addo has not called a single press conference for the murder of Hon. J.B Danquah his party member. What a display of irony and misplace of trust.

Akuffo-Addo have the nerves to talked about the Kintampo accident yet he does not have the heart to come out to tell Ghanaians how his pregnant wife died after a newspaper revealed with vivid detailed that he killed his first wife, (Oba yaa). He does not have what it takes to come out and tell Ghanaians how his Nigerian wife also escaped to abroad with his two kids.
What makes Akuffo-Addo think that, Ghanaian women will vote for a man who maltreat his wives and refused to come clean of killing them?

Is it not Akoffo-Addo’s led NPP that disrespected the privacy of a female journalist? And yet he want Ghanaians women vote, Yet he want the Ghanaians Journalists vote. Ghanaians women and Journalists cannot be taken for granted. They know who truly respect their privacy and who don’t.

His Excellency President John D. Mahama, the gain of our Independence and symbol of our democracy on his state of the nation address charge the police to work harder in providing answers to all questions surrounding the death of Hon. J.B. Danquah-Adu. That is the President of all sides. But for Akuffo-Addo, He is epitome of disaster. …… To be continued.