President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has urged the chiefs and people of the Upper East Region to look ‘favourably’ on the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government by giving it massive endorsement in the upcoming December polls.
Addressing a meeting of the Upper East Regional House of Chiefs on Thursday, the President stated that the region had, since the beginning of the Fourth Republic, not given the NPP the greater chance in the presidential or parliamentary elections.
“The presidential candidates of my party, that is, Prof. Adu Boahen, John Agyekum Kufuor, and myself have never won the majority of the popular votes in the Upper East Region and, indeed, our party has not fared well in the parliamentary elections. Three (3) out of the fifteen (15) seats of the region are currently in the possession of the New Patriotic Party,” he said.
The President continued, “What I am respectfully asking of you is that having regard to what is happening in this country in the last three (3), nearly four (4) years, of a performing government that has fulfilled the overwhelming majority of its commitments to the Ghanaian people, and has shown its determination to work in the interest of all the people of Ghana without discrimination, that this time round the Upper East should look favourably on the elephant party and help us to become the majority party in the Upper East,” he said.
President Akufo-Addo told the House of Chiefs that, in the three and half years that he has been in office, he has been able to take practical steps to implement programmes that are transforming the country and added that he has fulfilled his 2016 Manifesto promise.
He said “before the 2016 election, I had no record as a President to put before the Ghanaian people and that is why I made a series of promises to the Ghanaian people that if they gave me the chance, with the blessing of the Almighty, there were certain things that I would do.”
It was the acceptance of those promises and also the poor governance of the then Mahama administration, the President explained, that led the Ghanaian people to give him the resounding victory of December 7, 2016.
“Today, I am no longer in the position I was in 2016. I have had nearly four years of being responsible for the conduct of the governance of this country. So, in 2020, I am going to the people, not just with promises, but with my record in governance.”
Counting on his solid record of performance in office, he told the chiefs that “I have dealt with them (Ghanaian people) honestly. It is important for me that I should be seen to be a man of integrity, a man who did not come to deceive the Ghanaian people but came to assist in the development of our nation.”