Koku Anyidoho
The CEO of the Atta Mills Institute, Koku Anyidoho, has explained why the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) is losing grounds to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Volta Region.
While speaking on the Oman FM Boiling Point programme on Tuesday, he said that the political dynamics in the Volta Region and elsewhere have changed. “People are building new alliances,” he pointed out.
He described as unacceptable the situation where the NDC continue to take the people of the Volta Region for granted over the years.
With the changed dynamics, the NPP is making appreciable inroads, fact which was evident during the tour of the region recently by the flagbearer of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia.
The NPP, he said, is doing what the NDC used to do under the late Atta Mills by getting to the people. The late President Atta Mills, he said, used to lodge with party people and not hotels when he went on party tours outside Accra.
Quoting from the recent Afrobarometer Report on factors which the electorate would consider while making their choices during the elections, he said the electorate would not consider religion or ethnicity.
The NDC and NPP, after 32 years, are both operating on a level field. Both, he continued, have candidates originating from the Northern part of the country, adding also that the election is about the quality of the candidates of the two parties, their character and integrity. Chiefs, the church and imams are all pointing at the honesty of Dr. Bawumia. “We heard what was being said in the Volta Region about Dr. Bawumia,” he said.
Chiefs in the Volta Region have expressed anger about people in that part of the country being taken for granted by the NDC over the years.
Dr. Bawumia, he said, showed no arrogance to his hosts in the Volta Region and so they did not complain even when they had to wait for him from 9:30am.
Ghanaians are looking for candidates with integrity, who would fulfil promises and imbued with new ideas that would move the country forward.
Poverty and unemployment exist even in the developed countries, but it takes innovations to change the lives of the people, he said.
The credit worthiness concept Dr. Bawumia has promised to introduce when he wins the election is a typical example leaders are expected to bring into their countries, as it affords people the opportunity to buy into the future.
Negative NDC Adverts
He took a swipe at one of the advertisements being aired by the NDC, which he said is anti-Fulani.
The said advertisement by the NDC seeks to present the Fulanis as not belonging to the country, adding that this is alien to the NDC of the Rawlings and Atta Mills days.
The umbrella was for all to come under, he said.
“What has happened to the NDC? Former President Mahama cannot say he does not know about these advertisements. I used to vet all advertisements before they were aired. Mahama does not take advice from anybody,” he said.
By A.R. Gomda