Politics of Sunday, 22 May 2016
Source: classfmonline.com
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo
Calls by opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearer Nana Akufo-Addo to the people of the Volta Region to vote him into office as president and not give in to fear that his reign will bode ill for the people of the region have been questioned by a member of the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC), Lord Chester Ati.
Mr Akufo-Addo made the comments on his four-day tour of the region to canvass for votes ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections in the country in November.
The region has, since 1992, when Ghanaians voted to usher in the fourth republic, been the stronghold of the NDC, earning it the tag as the party’s ‘World Bank’. During President John Mahama’s recent ‘Accounting to the People’ tour there, he declared that the party also regarded the region as its “IMF”.
But Mr Akufo-Addo, in a bid to reverse the unimpressive electoral record of the NPP in the region, recently told the people to vote out the Mahama administration and give him the chance to be president, asking them to ignore word going round that he would make living in Ghana miserable for the people of the Volta Region and hound political opponents of Ewe extraction, should he ascend the presidency.
Mr Akufo-Addo’s assurances come on the back of a plea by former Transport Minister to the people of the Volta Region, at a rally in the Ketu South constituency in April, not to vote in the NPP as she would be jailed in line with the NPP’s hatred for Ewes, which, according to her, saw the party embark on a jailing spree of former Ministers of the erstwhile Rawlings administration.
Speaking on Accra News on Saturday May 21, 2016, with Nana Agyen Barima, Mr Ati wondered why Akufo-Addo would tell voters in the Volta Region not to be fearful of his administration in the event of victory at the polls in November.
He said Mr Akufo-Addo and his party knew very well of their “anti-Voltarian” stance and what “they are capable of” for which reason he made those comments.
“We should not fear him how? Does it mean Akufo-Addo has something against Voltarians? Who is he that we Voltarians should be scared of if he has done nothing to us Voltarians?” he asked.
But Mr Akufo-Addo’s campaign aide, Pius Hadzide, who is accompanying the flagbearer on the tour, said Mr Ati’s comments were “disgraceful”.
He told Accra News’ Nana Ama Agyarko on the same day that the rousing reception Mr Akufo-Addo received from the people in the region had shaken the NDC’s assertion that the Volta Region was still its ‘World Bank’.
“If, with this, some people still claim the Volta Region is the ‘World Bank’ of the NDC, then I promise them, their World Bank has gone bankrupt, and is worse than DKM…” he said, in reference to DKM Diamond Limited, one of the bankrupt sham microfinance institutions that have duped several people in parts of the country of millions of cedis after promising them supernormal interest rates.