Vice-President Dr. Bawumia
Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has said the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is better today than it was in 2016 when the party won the election from opposition.
He said the NPP, since assuming office in 2017, had worked harder to justify its re-election and would not need to ‘play games’ with anybody to win the 2020 contest, adding that the NPP would surely defeat the National Democratic Congress (NDC) again.
Speaking on ‘Asempa FM’ in Accra yesterday, the Vice-President said it was unfortunate for the current opposition NDC to suggest that the NPP government was deliberately creating insecurity in the Volta Region and then use that as a pretext to send security personnel to the area to intimidate the people.
The host of the programme read a statement coming from the NDC National Chairman, Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, in which he claimed President Akufo-Addo was not acting on the Volta Region violence because they want to send soldiers to the NDC stronghold during the election to put fear in the people.
But the Vice-President described the NDC position as unfortunate, saying, “When the country faces a threat, we expect all political parties to leave politics aside so that we join hands together and protect the country.”
“But any opportunity for our opponent to get political advantage in this issue does not make sense. We won an election in 2016 when they were in office. We didn’t need to suppress votes in their strongholds. They were in office when we won the election by over a million votes,” he added.
“And, in fact, if truth be told, I think that our performance in government has even put us in a better position than we were in 2016 as far as the politics is concerned. So there is no need to try to play games and try to suppress votes in strongholds. There is no need for that at all,” he indicated.
Bawumia Shakes Nima
In the morning, activities at Nima in Accra literally came to a standstill when the Vice-President started the two-day of his Greater Accra Regional tour with a walk there.
He was in the company of the party’s parliamentary candidates for Ayawaso East and North constituencies, Peter Mireku and Manaf Mohammad Osmanu, respectively.
Everywhere he went, Dr. Bawumia was cheered on by enthusiastic crowd, most of whom did the NPP sign indicating ‘Four More for Nana’ to which he responded in like manner in the form of a wave.
It was an interesting sight to behold when he got to the Nima Market where scores of market women sang the ‘Four More for Nana’ song.
He urged the market to consider what the Akufo-Addo-led NPP administration had been able to do, including the provision of Free SHS, the construction of factories, warehouses, dams, planting for food and jobs programme, restoration of trainee teachers and nurses allowance and other achievements, to give the “four more years to do more.”
Dr. Bawumia later addressed a mini rally at the Kawukudi Park where he touted government’s achievements, saying, among other things, that since independence, Zongo communities had seen little development and had never been considered in the national budget and that it took the coming into power of President Akufo-Addo to change the narrative and created a Ministry for Zongo Development as well as an agency called the Zongo Development Fund to see to the progress of the communities.
He said that former President John Mahama and his NDC who pretend to love Muslims rather cancelled allowances for Arabic instructors and it took President Akufo-Addo and the NPP to restore it alongside the restoration of the teaching and nursing trainee allowances.
Apart from that, he said 40 students from Zongos had been selected under the NPP government to study medicine in Cuba and added that 37 ICT centres had also been constructed for Zongos throughout the country.
By Ernest Kofi Adu & Charles Takyi-Boadu