Presidential Candidate Captures Legon

...Akoto impresses young voters ...promises to create 5 million jobs in 3 years, free calls MR. RAMON Osei Akoto, one of the independent presidential candidates in the December elections was the man of the moment when he featured in a political debate organized by the Students' Representative Council (SRC) of the University of Ghana, Legon.

Ahead of the debate that also featured representatives of all the major political parties contesting in the December polls, Mr. Akoto, with the support of a number of students, went round some residential halls to canvass support from the students.

When the debate started at around 4pm, the organizers of the programme had to make several appeals to be able to calm down the numerous supporters of the independent presidential candidate. The students sang, danced and waved high, the posters of the presidential hopeful not leaving out the national flag which is his symbol.

When the debate started, the messages from the representatives of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and that of the largest opposition party, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) could hardly be heard as the numerous supporters of Akoto kept on shouting his name and slogan amidst the beating of drums, singing and dancing.

Then came the time for Ramon (as the students preferred calling him) and the whole place went virtually silent, an indication that the majority of the people wanted to hear what the young presidential hopeful had for them.

While other speakers delivered their speeches, standing on the dais, Ramon descended and first acknowledged the cheers from students with big shouts.

Speaking with a typical American accent, he accused all past governments of not being development oriented.

The presidential candidate observed that given the numerous natural and human resources that the country was endowed with, the country should been where it is today as far as development is concerned.

He blamed the situation on poor governance through corrupt practices on the part of successive governments of this country since independence.

Touching on what he had for the nation if he were to win the impending presidential election on December 7, Ramon then started with what became popularly known at the forum as the "IT agenda".

He stressed that the world was now in an information age and that through the effective utilization of Information Technology (IT) the country could make monumental gains in her developmental agenda.

Ramon, who is an IT expert stated that when voted into power, he was going to govern this country with what he called Electronic Government (E-government) which he said was going to be very effective in tackling and eradicating the problem of corruption in the system.

He promised to create as much as 5 million jobs within a period of three years, provide free local telephone calls/ one fixed rate for unlimited long distance calls with Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) technology.

The presidential candidate further promised to introduce E-commerce, multimedia for distance learning and a modernized agriculture if given the mandate to rule this country as president and called on the students and the entire electorates of the nation to repose their confidence in him by voting massively for him in the December polls.

At the end of the forum, the candidate found it difficult to get into his car as his supporters gathered around him amidst shouts of the slogan, "Ramon nie IT nie," literally meaning, here is Ramon and here is IT. Once again the organizers of the function had to come in to help Ramon get into his car.