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Opinions of Sunday, 11 November 2012

Columnist: Nuhu, Kashaa

NPP Using “Free SHS In The North” To Hoax Ghanaians

Into Bringing Them Back To Power.

The opposition NPP living in their own hallucination think they can delude Ghanaians into voting them into power by their gargantuan frivolous promise of free SHS. Ghanaians are discerning enough to separate banter assurances from pragmatic ones. Promises meant to win political power and never to be realized have no place in the minds of Ghanaians in these 2012 general elections.

The NPP’s reference point to this hoodwink to the electorates of Ghana is always the north; purporting people of northern descents are enjoying free education. I write to let Nana Addo and his desperate NPP who want to get to power “At all cost” be informed that, Ghanaians are awfully conscious of hoaxing them into voting for the party (NPP) they resentfully rejected in 2008 even with their a lot touted much ado JAK administration.

Free SHS as affirmed by Papa Owusu Ankomah, a stalwart in the NPP (MP for Sekondi) and a former educational minister in former President Kuffour’s regime, that it is going to be a though one to be implemented considering the astronomical increment of students coupled with this policy, it will be saddled with infrastructural deficit facing the schools. This implies that, we do not need free SHS now but infrastructure.

Schools in the north were free from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (CPP government) all the way to NPP’s Danquah-Busia regime to the Supreme Military Council (SMC II) down to the third Republic, the PNC government, led by Dr. Hilla Liman and have since then, ceased to be free till date. What people of the north enjoy now as referred to by Nana “Obuggie”Akufo Addo and his NPP as free SHS is the northern scholarship on feeding, which is feeding grant and NOT FREE SHS as it is earlier.

SHS in Ghana cannot be free as those proposing it find it difficult costing it with incongruous figures peddled out there by Nana Addo at the IEA platform, Nana Akomea (Communication director of NPP and Okaikoi South MP) at Joy fm’s current affairs show newsfile, and Prof. Djan Baffour (MP for Wenchi). The flag bearer of NPP, Nana“Obuggie”could not tell the world how much it will cost when he had the opportunity with Steve Sacker of BBC hard talk. I completed Secondary School from 1998 to 2000 at the north and I paid fees in 3 years except feeding fees.

People from the North pay School fees except feeding fees which many a time are not forth coming causing students to stay at their homes while their counterparts elsewhere continue with the same syllables they will all be writing on at the West Africa Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) until government releases the funds for that. It is also a fallacy that, people of Northern origin anywhere in the country do not pay fees because of the free SHS at the north. My wife (Ramatu) and Nephew (Ashraf) completed Kumasi Secondary Technical and Opoku Ware Schools respectively in Kumasi and has since paid School fees throughout their 3(three) and 4 (four) year stay in their various schools accordingly.

In any case, Nana Addo and his NPP knew that, the economy of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah (CPP) to the era of the UP (Danquah-Busia) with a population around 6million is incompatible with the current 25million Ghanaians and are definitely not the same as it stands. How many secondary schools were in the north and the country as a whole? Around the same time and beyond when descendants of the north were enjoying free education, Nana Addo, and his NPP gurus, and of course the good President of the Republic of Ghana and his Vice were munching eggs and meals of their choices in the various universities. Is it a border now to the NPP that is not in place again?

The truth about the free SHS by NPP is that, they want to scrape out the feeding grants at the north as this was argued in Parliament by some NPP MPs some time in 2003 which Nana Addo was part (MP for Akyem Abuakwa south) to cancel that policy at the north. In order to succeed in doing this, Nana Akufo Addo is promising this outrageously unrealistic policy by deceiving Ghanaians to voting for him in other to embark on their long awaiting plan to mature for execution. Ghanaians must take note of this.

Now the trick is that, when Ghanaians in the most UNLIKELY event vote the NPP into power led by “Chief diabolic schema” (Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo) they will try implementing it and later stop on the cover that, the nation can no longer sustain it, thereby scraping it out totally in the entire country. What an uncaring NPP?

Granted without admitting the NPP will implement the kind of free SHS at the north as always being their example, the NPP is then back to the issue of affordability which is a cogent position of the NDC. We must think about infrastructure, affordability, accessibility and quality before making it progressively cheaper and eventually free as enshrined in the 1992 Constitution of Ghana. It is the NDC that have the tract record on education with the soaring salaries of teachers under the SSSS, massive infrastructural development in schools, Provision of free school uniforms to Pupils, expansion of the school feeding programme, provision of text books to schools, removal of schools under trees to mention but a few.

In everything, think about quality first. How many of their (NPP CRONIES) wards attend a public school under the fCube? Unless the NPP want to produce low quality and unuseful graduates from the SHS with their free SHS policy as propagated throughout the country to be a threat to society. Ghanaians are well aware, openly awake and will not fall hook, line and sinker and easily be swayed by this “malevolence intended” promise of free SHS by Nana Akufo Addo and the opposition NPP. No body in the NPP including the promise-maker himself (Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo) has any tangible authentication on how the promise will be fulfilled by their palpable failure to costing it.

The right choice and person to entrust your mandate Ghanaians is HE JDM and the NDC to ADVANCE THE BETTER GHANA AGENDA. NDC! ed3 bee K3K3!!

By Kashaa Nuhu babnuh11@yahoo.com.