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The Akyem Axis In Ghana Politics And Development: Curse Or Blessing

Feature Article The Akyem Axis In Ghana Politics And Development: Curse Or Blessing
NOV 25, 2020 LISTEN

God’s purpose for man is to bless him (man) with wealth to bless others. By the projections of the 2010 Population Census, Ghana is constituted of 71% Christians. God calls individuals from families to assign them to undertake specific assignments. He called Abraham out of his family, and called Moses, Joseph etc, and used them to bless their families, not with compulsion, but freewill.

But man has tried over the years to counter God’s principle, by reversing assignments to the collective, instead of the individual. It is akin to putting on a pair of shoes before the pair of socks. They call it socialism, as against capitalism. These two combative philosophies are well anchored in Jesus’ parable of the talents in Mathew’s Gospel Chapter 25, where one had five and profited five more; emphasised in the one who had two on two – as successful people who understand their tasks and live to their pursuits and responsibilities in life.

However, the one who had one talent hid it. But when asked to account for it, rather than answering the question, attacked the person of his benefactor thus, ‘’Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed;’ he then plays the vulnerability excuse, ‘’And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours’’. Mat 25: 24b – 25.

This is a well-researched, refined and rehearsed modus operandi of world knowledge called socialism, with propaganda (attack of the person) as its maiden tool of means to ‘success’.

But, a certain Joseph Boakye Danquah, by Divine inspiration, was politically called from an Akyem family, to raise the unquestionable dream of a far distant quest for self-government for the Gold Coast. He, like Moses, having been trained in the house of Pharaoh - the Colonial master’s school in the University of London - sold the idea to fellow family members Edward Akufo Addo and William Ofori Atta. They bought into the vision, and extended it to persons outside the family including Ako Adzei, Paa Grant, Emmanuel Obetsebi Lamptey, J. Tsiboe among others.

But these gentlemen, while their peers were thinking about themselves and minding their own businesses and families, decided to contribute their own fortunes mobilised from hard decent work, to spend on a distant self-government or independence for the Gold Coast. The perceived outcome of the venture was nebulous to human mind but they soldiered on, just like how it happened to Abraham and Moses among others.

To present targeted focus and impetus to achieving the objective of self-government, they invited, appointed and financed Dr Nkrumah’s trip and upkeep as the Secretary-General of the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) in 1948.

The UGCC was a conservative party promoting traditional social institutions, culture, self-identity and property rights among others, working to attain self-government ‘within the shortest possible time’. The ideological choice of UGCC members was obvious: cultured on family traits for investment, hard work, self-reliance and fear of God, from which they had attained social and financial heights. This was at a time none of the members considered any earnings from a perceived national vault, but sincerely committed their energies and resources to the general well-being of all Gold Coasters (Ghanaians) unto independence and ready to share with all.

Their sacrifices culminated in the arrest and detention of the Big Six after the 1949 riots, and the place of the famous Big Six has never been controverted in any historical account in Ghana. Due to the huge investment of J. B. Danquah and his immediate family, 50% of the number of the Big Six are all Akyems of the same blood line – incontrovertible truth.

This Akyem family, in order to build their future to face personal and national challenges invested so much in education and training - law, mining, banking, finance, brokerage, stock exchange, insurance, international financial systems and transited into politics in very unique ways. After two generations, this Akyem family has built unique pedigree of expertise in many uncharted professions and vocations within and without this country, to actualise the vision of their forebears.

After the internal feud that resulted in Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s breakaway to form the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1949, the political traditions fighting for self-government became two: the conservative (capitalist) UGCC and Socialist CPP with the slogans, ‘Self-government in the shortest possible time’ and, ‘self-government now’, respectively.

The front became divided; and as to which choice was most relevant and appropriate for Gold Coast in view of massive national failures, has kept coming up in various discourses, without scientific consensus.

Then I discovered something significant from my research in 2006. The defunct African Messenger of New York published in its 1st May, 1957 issue of an interview granted Dr Nkrumah and the then leader of the independence struggle in Cote d’Ivoire, Felix Houphouet-Boigny.

The question to Dr Nkrumah was, with independence and weak governance structures and systems, how was he (Nkrumah) going to manage the new nation. He answered he would use the power and authority of the State to do so.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny on the other hand, who was still leading the struggle for independence of his homeland, said he would use market forces to address the same challenges Dr Nkrumah had enumerated.

Houphouet-Boigny’s answer was similar to what the UGCC had envisioned, with its successive off-shoots of the United Party (UP) - 1952; Progress Party (PP) - 1969 and later the New Patriotic Party (NPP) - 1992.

True to words, Dr Nkrumah/CPP (6 years), and successive Nkrumah oriented governments led by Generals Acheampong & Akuffo’s Supreme Military Council (SMC) 7 years), Dr Hilla Limann’s (PNP) (2 years) and Jerry Rawlings’ P/NDC (27 years) largely run this country on this state-led approach to economic governance, as practiced by Dr Nkrumah, for a total of 42 years.

The CPP eventually led us into independence, but unfortunately, with a victim mind-set, where we counted ourselves as victims of all the colonial master did, without any credit, and adopted state-led approach to governance and economic management. This was compounded with ideological variances during the P/NDC era with the Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) in which some effort was made to do the bidding of the Bretton woods institutions because the country was cash-strapped but not because of ideological shift and believe in the inter-play of market forces, as propounded by the UGCC, and its off-shoots in the late 1940s, led by the Akyem group.

Indeed, I was shocked to discover during my research into ‘why the lack of sustainability in development projects/programmes in Ghana’,(2006) that, the Progress Party (UGCC off-shoot) in its budget of 1970, with Dr Kofi Busia as Prime Minister and the young J.H Mensah as Minister for Economic Planning, for their believe in the capacity and enterprise of the Ghanaian people, tried to open economic opportunities for the citizenry to capture the commanding heights of the Ghanaian economy. In this drive, the PP Government banned the importation of 120 commodities, including tooth-pick, matches, TV sets among others, so as to allow Ghanaians to seize the opportunities and rely on themselves. Sadly, this was one of the beefs for the overthrow of this glorious opportunity with the January 13, 1972 coup of Col I.K Acheampong that reverted to state-led economic drives.

But ideological reality check finally arrived in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the NDC, apostles of state-led economic principles, had to grudgingly swallow the falsehood of the socialist outlook and tried to swallow the ‘vomit’ it had thrown out with others on the mantra of socialism and ‘equitable distribution of wealth’, when there was no wealth.

It was a severe backlash for the P/NDC that had attacked private businesses falsely accused of causing scarcity of essential commodities – milk, sugar, corned beef, sardine etc, when indeed the shortages were a result of failed economic policies of governments.

Unfortunately for the P/NDC the viral attacks on private enterprise and entrepreneurs during the ‘revolution’ hardly got the NDC governments the needed acceptance within the world capital market. What has been oblivious to the ‘socialists’ in Ghana is that, while wealth is created through capitalist systems as decreed by God, a socialist consideration could only be relevant after the wealth had been created. The Ghanaian ‘socialist’ approach to governance therefore is akin to putting on the shoe before putting on the pair of socks.

This ideological contradiction on Ghana’s economic growth during the 19 years of P/NDC diminished Ghana’s economy into a Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) by 1997, and bequeathed a mere GDP rate of 3.7% by year 2000 to the New Patriotic Party Government of J.A. Kuffour, who had won the 2000 Presidential election in a run-off.

Inheriting and managing a HIPC economy based on ideological contradictions with high expectations of the populace from the new government was a herculean task. However, after an eight-year rule, that operated on the Akyem economic seed based on God’s principle for wealth creation, the Kuffour Government opened up the economy, discovered oil in commercial quantities by 2007, introduced hitherto unknown credible social interventions in school feeding, LEAP, Metro Mass transport, a national health insurance, free maternal delivery and attained an enviable GDP growth rate of 9.1% by 2008.

Another feat of the Kuffour Government was to have shepherded the economy to a middle-income status by 2007. Thus, the Kuffour administration attained the status, thirteen years earlier than what the NDC had planned to have attained by 2020. Children born in 2007 are now in Junior High Schools with the promise to enjoy free senior high school education without much sweat.

Before the NPP assumed power in 2001, mediocrity in the system could not embolden the implementation of any bold policy like a national health insurance scheme. Where was the money going to come from when the national kitty was so constrained and the whole system had been consumed by the ‘victim mindset’ which makes it difficult to believe in ourselves and our self-reliant capacities?

The economic contrast was repeated when the Mills/Mahama administration improved GDP growth with oil production in 2010 to an all-time high of 14.1% in 2011. There was some renewed hope, but the bubble burst when Ex-President Mahama took over the reins of the NDC and Government after the untimely death of Prof Atta Mills. The high flying 14.1% GDP growth consistently shrank annually to constrict the economy to a miserable 3.5% by 2016. The economic constriction was experienced in four years of dumsↄ, withdrawal of allowances to various segments of the public service, late or non-payment of statutory funds, increased growing graduate and youth unemployment, freeze on public service employment, among others. And even this poor showing was with government’s solace in the arms of the IMF for CREDIBILITY.

The people’s outrage at the crass economic incompetence with consistent dwindling economic fortunes for four years, was soundly repudiated by the people who massively voted the NDC Government out in the 2016 Presidential election. This was done by a massive margin of about a million votes; unprecedented loss by any incumbent government, since the 4th Republic began. This also endorsed the then President as the first one-term President in the 4th Republic.

Thus, it could well be said that, while so-called socialists have no serious clue about turning economic fortunes of the people round for the better, they are at best presenting themselves as saints of equity, just to attain power, which enables them to distribute poverty with its ramifications on national life. Any wonder the NPP boldly claims that what they toil to build, the NDC comes to destroy? It is an affirmation of the oppression the ‘one talent’ mind-set puts on the people in Ghana when such persons are in power. They can hardly think far, but slander opponents and can hardly engage in policy debate. They thrive on propaganda: propaganda that makes a hitherto fine gentleman, a moron.

I recall Dr Kwame Nkrumah’s hitherto high-sounding statement, ‘Seek ye first the political kingdom and all others shall be added unto it’? have you ever asked yourself, what have we got added to this nascent political craze for over six decades? And when he said, ‘…and all others shall be added unto it’, have you ever asked yourself what the ‘others’ are, and who will add them? And why have these ‘others’ eluded us after governments claiming allegiance to him, his philosophes and programmes have ruled this nation for four out of the five decades since his overthrow? And is it not intriguing to hear these adherents unintelligently ascribing our poor state of development to his overthrow in 1966? What is wrong? What went missing?

Hopelessness and despondency had reached a crescendo by the close of 2015, under the seventh year of the NDC Government led by Ex-President Mahama, due to shrinking socio-economic fortunes: four years of dumsↄ had crushed businesses and thrown many out of jobs in both public and private space, swelling the ranks of unemployed graduates/youth; withdrew nursing and teacher trainee allowances; increased school fees and taxes; newly recruited workers paid three months’ salary out of a year’s work, among others, as the Government run to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for economic surgery to claw back some of the lost economic credibility.

In all this quagmire the President and Government failed to give corresponding direction and hope to galvanise the populace to productive action after he declared the economic meat had been eaten off and left with the bones. This created opportunities for proliferation of Ponzi schemes; unprofessional conduct of many in the financial sector encouraging weak enforcement of rules that placed many banks on the glide into bankruptcy.

2017 was exactly 60 years since the famous interview was conducted for both Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Mr Felix Houphoet Boigny of the Ivory Coast. So, we decided to compare and contrast the effect of both governance approaches adopted by Ghana and the Ivory Coast to development and the impacts. Without blinking an eye, the following issues that came to mind included:

  • Ghana used to be the leading producer of cocoa until the Ivory Coast overtook us in the 1980s. We have not been able to catch up with them. While the Ivory Coast produces about 2 million tons of cocoa annually, Ghana is struggling to hit a million tons. Even the five and years of civil war in Ivory Coast from 2010 - 2015 could not inure to our benefit to upstage them in cocoa production. We however still hold the quality lead of the commodity.
  • The Ivory Coast has no massive hydro projects as we have. But during the four years of dumsↄ, they came to our aid with power supplies.
  • Ghana and the Ivory Coast met three times in the finals of African cup football tournaments which were decided on penalties. The Ivory Coast defeated us on all occasions.

In analysing reasons for the striking differences, it became clear that, the state-led approach adopted by Dr Nkrumah and many governments after him, fuelled a dependent and victim mindset on the average Ghanaian, fraught with lack of self-belief and self-actualisation. On the other hand, the Houphoet Boighy approach has helped Ivorians to believe in themselves with self-reliance, self-belief and independent mindset.

In the maze of such despondency and hopelessness, a rallying voice erupted from the Akyem stock in the person of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, re-emerged on the campaign platform of the NPP with messages of hope and responsibility that opponents could not comprehend. The consistency of the Nana Addo/Bawumia ticket from 2008, through 2012, as against the failed economic policies of the ruling NDC, gave Ghanaians the heart to move out of the mediocrity mind-set shield, to test the emerging force with such lofty and unimaginable policies in: free SHS, revived NHIS, One District One Factory; One Village, One dam for the north; One Constituency, One million dollars; one Constituency one ambulance, among many more.

The ruling NDC knew there was no money left in the kitty, except debt, as the President had earlier declared. Meanwhile the charges of corrupt deals discovered by the Auditor-General’s Department, and cases of corruption to the person of the President had got the nation on urge. This, added to the status of lack of NDC self-belief, as against policies of monstrous political capital proportions for the NPP, made the NDC to mount spirited but reckless campaigns against the policies, especially, Free SHS, One District one factory, to dissuade the people from voting for the NPP, claiming they were ‘419’ and therefore impossible. It was unbelievable that, the NDC for instance organised street demonstrations against the free SHS in addition to tens of adverts to denigrate the policies of their main opponent, the NPP.

The NDC lost the 2016 election and the NPP won. All the pessimism the NDC raised about the policies have been erased as the Nana Akufo Addo/Bawumia led team have been able to access and invest unprecedented amounts of money, touching almost every facet of national life.

Faced with the reality and successes of the numerous policies being achieved by the Akyem-led NPP Government, the NDC decided to mount the horse of the ‘one talent man’ spoken about in the Gospel of Mathew 25:24, ‘then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground…..’

In analysing this quotation above, as indicated earlier on, it is the modus operandi of socialist-minded political groups: just as the man with one-talent ignored the real issue of accountability at stake to attack the personality of his benefactor, so it is with political traditions with propaganda as the means to attain power. It is the case of little minds discussing persons as against discussing ideas.

So, for instance, we all complain that we have never really benefitted from our mineral wealth after centuries of mining. Our mining towns of Obuasi, Tarkwa, Prestea among others have never looked like towns that had produced millions of tons of minerals worth hundreds of billions of cedis.

The best we have achieved, as Governments, Civil Society Organisations etc, has been to take plaudits for eloquently articulating our poor state. Whiles on this, there has hardly been any innovative way to address the problem of poor infrastructure, poverty and squalor that have become the trade mark of the communities.

The response of our Governments, both in Ghana and Africa as a whole, is the victim-mindset that is resigned to tickle with mediocrity while the people wallop in poverty – the paradox of standing on riches yet poor. For how long shall we remain such a contradiction and bequeath same to generations yet unborn.

So again, the Akyem leadership tries to confront the status quo, expand the scope and relevance to open opportunities for many in Ghana by leveraging on mineral royalties. So, an innovative idea to turn around our fortunes was mooted.

In 2018, the Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) Bill, 2018, (Act 978) was approved by both sides of Parliament, assented to by the President who inaugurated the Board on 4th October, 2019.

The objects of the MIIF under Section 2 of Act 978 being, ‘(a) maximise the value of the income due the Republic from the mineral wealth of the country for the benefit of its citizens; (b)monetise the minerals income accruing to the Republic in a beneficial, responsible, transparent, accountable and sustainable manner; and (c) develop and implement measures to reduce the budgetary exposure of the Republic to minerals income fluctuations’.

At the inauguration of the Board, President Akufo Addo stated, ‘These monies belong to the people of Ghana and they are counting on you to use it judiciously, prudently, and also with some imagination’.

Complex issues demand complex brains to unravel. Just as free SHS seemed too complex for some brains to comprehend, a similar scenario is being played in finding solutions to this poor return on our mineral wealth over centuries with attendant poverty and squalor. The vehicle to change the status quo is inherent in passing Act 987, the Minerals Investment Income Fund (MIIF) better described in the Agyapa arrangement.

I have so far not heard any of the opposing voices saying the spirit behind the purpose of the Act is not good. But some want the whole thing to be thrown out because of the personalities involved but I beg to differ. Until these personalities of Akyem extraction emerged on the scene, how many of those in opposition and CSOs ever thought outside the box to fix this minerals poverty apart from whining and lamenting about our poverty?

Is it not true that they remain the one-eyed king in the kingdom of the blind and therefore enjoy the people’s poverty while pretending to be fighting for them?

Four major things have happened in our life as a country.

The UGCC led by the Akyem people first introduced and financed the maiden steps to self-government based on God’s plan for economic development. They asked for independence in the ‘shortest possible time’, to allow them set a strong foundation for independence and its aftermath.

Dr Nkrumah whom they financed took advantage of his position to break away and called for ’independence now!’ 60 odd years on, our peers of the Ivory Coast has left us trailing them. We are now structuring to stand on our feet to accept what we rejected with the UGCC 70 years earlier, after the state-led economic approach with its socialist experimentations have left us stranded as a nation without direction but promoters of mediocrity. Mediocrity that made FSHS an unattainable fit in our life time. In its stead, a so-called progressively free process was introduced, asking all other children to wait until all classroom facilities were constructed; meanwhile the children of the proponents of such mediocrity, were not waiting, but in school. The Animal Farm.

The P/NDC era also took the socialist mantle. But reality check forced ideological shift, albeit half-heartedly that did not allow reaping the full benefits of the system. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and adoption of market forces and individual liberties around the world, the UGCC ideology was once again vindicated in the annals of Ghana’s socio-economic and political history.

Thirdly, the introduction of NHIS, and its unfortunate resistance by the socialist block in the country led by the NDC again raised questions about its true ideological direction. The UGCC offshoot NPP led by President Kuffour went on further to introduce free maternal delivery, free mass transport among others and discovered oil in commercial quantities. All these that were expected to inure to the goodness of the majority of the people were derided by the socialist block with unimaginable reasons bordering on absurdity.

The socio-economic hardship and four years of dumsↄ under the Mahama led NDC Government revealed lethargic reasoning resulting in conceding the country to IMF conditionalizes for some credibility.

While the battle for the 2016 presidential race raged on, the weapons for the NPP was on policies like Free SHS; 1 District, 1 Factory; 1 Village, 1 Dam; 1 Constituency, 1 Ambulance, etc.

Another developmental challenge in our evolution into statehood is the appreciation of tangibles over intangibles. Thus, while the NDC touted its achievements in infrastructure it saw how impossible it was for the opposition NPP to fulfil its promises. For instance, it took six years for the NDC to attempt to revive the Komenda Sugar Factor, and could therefore not believe how 1D1F for instance could be possible.

It is with such scepticism that the Agyapa issue is confronted with: far-sightedness versus myopia. I have not heard any CSO or person, offering any concrete alternative to the Agyapa deal, apart from the normal street howling. How ‘potential risk assessment’; ‘reasonable suspicion of bid-rigging and corruption’ etc, without giving the actors a hearing amounts to ‘guilt’ by a competent court of jurisdiction, reveals lack of analytical minds swimming in the pool of popular nonsense. This is similar to the kind of absurd reasoning in the Yaa Naa tragedy among others. Some even say it must be abrogated without any alternative. Truly? Why? Any alternative? Do we seek the betterment of our people in Obuasi, Tarkwa, Prestea, and other mining towns?

This Agyapa discolouration too, shall pass. Can you recall the stance the NDC took when the unfortunate killing of the Yaa Naa and his elders occurred in 2002/3? How they howled and claimed knowledge of everything that happened? But after they won power, for 8 years they could not find any other clue from 2009 to 2016? It only took the intervention of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo, the AbuDani, and the eminent chiefs to broker peace in 2018.

The NDC made wild claims that the national health insurance was ‘one made for members of the then ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). As such many members of NDC did not want to register with the scheme’. Wikipedia.Org; a waste of money and time and boycotted the passage of the bill. Later they turned around to offer a so-called one-time premium which never saw the light of day throughout their eight year rule from 2009 to 2016. They are not best friends with critical analytical reasoning, but champions of popular nonsense.

You recall Chief Kuffour and the African Regency brouhaha? The NDC was vehement on this to encourage Kwesi Pratt to go a one-man demonstration to take the picture of the hotel being sold, claiming it was a crime for the sitting President’s son to buy a hotel on his own? The NDC could not reverse this sale because it was legal. That was why Ibrahim Mahama, though brother of the President then, took juicy contracts but lost the one of the bauxite because that was illegal.

This too shall pass. Remember how the NDC attack dogs were unleashed on the Kuffour administration for divesting Ghana Telecom to Vodafone? I remember Haruna Iddrisu, MP Tamale, then threatening that they would reverse the deal if they won power? They won power from 2009 to 2016, but Vodafone still stands on the feet the Kuffour Administration set it on. So is their conduct, thriving on ‘popular nonsense brewed in propaganda pot.

This too shall pass. The ‘barking dog’ and ‘Volta god’ they saw in their Founder Jerry Rawlings, in his life, have now become hypocritical songs of ‘praise’ at his death. Bizarre!

I have stated earlier that, the Akyem gift to Ghana is a precious gift and the opponent can only deride out of envy, jealousy, hatred and tribal bigotry with outright lies. Why did the seed J.B. Danquah and his cousins sowed, got germinated and flourishing, but other former political leaders do not have it so; that they do not have such cream of strong family with educated and competent people? We see the Kennedy, Bush, Rockefeller families in the US.

The opposition as usual, playing on the ignorance and emotions of the people accuse government of family and friends. The true question is, has President Akufo Addo violated any constitutional provision? If a family and friends’ government is able to offer so much relief to the general populace, is it not the delivery that we want with competent people?

Mahama and his family and friends NDC government gave us dumsↄ, unemployment, economic hardship etc. Nana Akufo Addo and friends NPP Government have reversed the hardships that were inherited. Which one do you want? They seem to frown on policies that seek to address challenges of lack of equitable distribution of wealth; imagine the series of demonstrations against free SHS; with Ex-President Mahama saying he would not invest $2 billion on it? But today he believes he can do free SHS better? And people are following this thinking?

The real question serious Ghanaians should be asking themselves about the Akufo Addo/Bawumia leadership are: a. having inherited such poor economy bequeathed to the duo, what ‘Divine touch’ are they and their teams performing to undertake these numerous far-reaching and people-centred policies, with no dumsↄ; with free water and electricity, etc, despite COVID-19, under 4 years?.

b. How is the NPP doing so well with its policies that the NDC in their confusion can only see them as ‘sakawa’?

c. Why does the NDC, that organised demonstrations against free SHS, because they believe it is not feasible, now claim they can improve and better manage it? And most absurd still, did I read Ex-President Mahama say he launched free SHS in 2015? So, what has happened to his policy of progressively free SHS, for which he was investing in the day-schools?

d. Digitisation, drones and paperless operations are big tools fighting against corruption and improving on efficiency. But how many are able to comprehend and value their effectiveness?

e. Why are NPP-led Nana Addo Government Policies so well-crafted to reach millions of people, in education, water, electricity, health, agriculture, technology, roads, telecommunication, disabilities, ports, rail, oil and gas, minerals etc, but not secluded to Akyems alone?

This Akyem family is a divine gift to this nation; take it or leave it. Let us support them to deliver more. They are a blessing, ignoring them is a curse.

Yes, there is corruption, with the foundation laid in 1954 elections and aftermath. The Mahama/NDC with a ‘perceived corrosive corruption cartel’ with 74 Ministers, family and friends never had any clear policy direction for nation building. They drained the system and exacted pain on the populace in withdrawn allowances for teaching and nursing trainees, four years of dumsↄ; introduced progressively free education denying thousands of wards to school, while NDC officials’ children went to school because they could not wait, for classrooms to be fully built some day; formation of Unemployed Graduates Association, rising youth unemployment, high school drop-out levels with over 90,000 JHS pupils; increasing taxes including condoms, declining effectiveness of health insurance, delayed/unpaid statutory funds, increased ponzi schemes and poor financial system, hopelessness, joblessness etc. the situation was well told in the dwindling GDP fortunes of 14.1% in 2011 to a miserable 3.5% by 2016. This abysmal failure is what then NPP running mate justified to label the then President and Government as INCOMPETENT.

But under the Akyem-led NPP, with perceived ‘palliative corruption cartel’ and 125 Ministers has a vision to get ‘Ghana Beyond Aid’. It introduced Free SHS, got Unemployed Graduates Association dissolved through NABCO and numerous youth targeted programmes like afforestation, Presidential youth entrepreneurships running; 1D1Fs running, 1C1A, 1V1D, Planting for food and jobs, free school feeding expanded, NHIS revived, massive road and bridge constructions ongoing, five interchanges ongoing simultaneously, Zongo Development Fund, 1M1C and Development Authorities, massive railway revival, etc.

The war with COVID-19 struck Ghana in 2020. On the battlefield, the Akyem family and friends’ government offered Ghanaians so much economic reliefs in free water and free electricity for six months, provided business support to SMEs and industry, enhanced packages for health workers among many others.

What does the nose need? It needs nothing than oxygen to breathe. And what do Ghanaians need? A thriving economy with opportunities and hope for all to improve on their wellbeing in freedom. The divine call that fell on J.B Danquah some 73 years ago is attaining fulfilment as a blessing to this nation. Whom God has blessed; none can curse. No amount of propaganda to subdue the people into perpetual poverty and squalor is in the will of God for this nation.

God by His own divine arrangement appointed three Akyems, out of six, as the Big Six of Ghana’s politics. We have no contention with that. So, we should not have any contention with an Akyem-led government with many competent members operating within the regulations of state and bringing prosperity, opportunities and hope to all. They are not angels; they will make mistakes, but the unction is on them. You curse them at your own peril. Support them to take Ghana to the promised land, it is their divine mandate. Socialise the Akyem blessing to reach all corners of the motherland. It is a blessing, not a curse!!!

Ðelali Ndↄ,

12/11/2020.

Ho. 024-4160535

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