NPP parliamentary candidates campaign on local issues ...

....and leave akuffo addo to burn in the fire of defeat!

Kwabena Nyamekye

Akuffo Addo has been exposed as a non-leader! Even though he helped sabotage Victor Owusu in 1979 we thought he had repented and so we let him back into our great tradition in the hope that he can make constructive contributions to our struggle to build a Danquah-Busia Ghana. Yet old habits die hard and 35 years after he held the knife that cut the Danquah-Busia cake in two pieces, he is back with a vengeance, attacking our party structures, eroding the authority of ex-president Kufuor, and creating a phantom Agenda 2020 slogan. Such a person is not a leader and under no circumstances whatsoever can the average Ghanaian voter elect him as president. From 6 regions left to him in 2008 he has worked hard to shrink us to 2 regions; in our strongholds he is leaking votes; and he even lost in Wenchi – Busia’s hometown. He is finished. No matter the allegations he makes against all those with a different view, no matter his smearing of President Kufuor and others he will never ever ever be president. Aged 72 people just might have looked the other way and voted for him if he had shown maturity but no dice, the man will for eternity be divisive.

So what do we do? I believe we can get round the Akufo Addo caused disaster by cutting ourselves off from him! He is tainted and so we should take steps to avoid the reputation he has from rubbing off on the rest of us. I hate to think of an NDC victory that brings about the loss of stalwart and decent MPs like OB Amoah, Isaac Osei, Prof Gyan Baffour and others. Also there are upcoming MPs who are looking for seats in constituencies where victory for us requires something like a 5% swing of voters in our favour. If the MPs campaign and mention Nana Addo, swing voters will probably vomit in disgust on hearing his name and this will ensure defeat. Thus to win in targeted seats and existing seats we need to campaign on local issues and nothing else. Local roads, local environmental issues, local hospitals, ensuring the expansion of our flagship LEAP programme to local residents etc should be the focus of our MPs campaign at the constituency level. Leave Nana Addo to visit Burundi, Benin and Bolivia as president in waiting. That is his problem and he will have to live with the defeat it is bringing him. But why should our MPs be tainted with the negative consequences of his self-entitlement? It is this self-entitlement that cost us power in 2008 and it is this that is creating deep cracks in our party today. Statements like it is “my destiny to be president”, “the presidency is my birth right” etc are things that put off the moderate voter. Therefore to help win your seats you should not be seen to be in support of his views. Don’t associate yourself with his super-divisive statements of “No Nana No Vote”. Make sure you are as far away as possible from a man who has attacked Kufuor, our tradition’s most successful leader!

A low-level grass roots campaign will help us win in places like Ahanta West, Banda, and Wa East where the NDC parliamentary majority is less than 2000 votes on average. It will ensure victory in strongholds like Subin and thus it just might make us powerful in parliament by securing a majority! Thus if we strategize properly, we could have an NPP dominated House. We could also see the back of the most divisive person in our tradition ever since JB Danquah, George Pa Grant, Robert Blay and others met to form our great tradition almost 60 years ago.

Let Akuffo Addo burn in the hell fire of defeat for a record third time while the Danquah-Busia family plans for the future!

Please circulate this via social media to all party members as we have a parliamentary majority to win.