Kufuor Predicts 56% For Nana

Former President Kufuor leaving the conference ground

FORMER PRESIDENT John Agyekum Kufuor has stated that the grounds are fertile for Nana Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to win 56 percent of the valid votes in the 2016 elections to restore hope to the country.

He said President Mahama's National Democratic Congress' (NDC's) bad governance and mismanagement of the economy make an NPP victory in 2016 more likely but added it should come with hard work through vigorous campaigning.

The former president remarked that the NPP's intended victory could only become a reality when the rank and file of the party became united and forged ahead with a common goal.

Addressing delegates at the party's 15th Extraordinary Delegates' Conference in Sunyani, the Brong-Ahafo Regional capital, last Saturday, former President Kufuor observed that Ghanaians are yearning to see the NPP – which DNA is good governance, rule of law, respect for human rights and creation of wealth – back in power in 2016 to replace “the promise and fail NDC administration led by President John Mahama, whose tenure in political office had resulted in severe economic hardships on the masses.”

The eminent statesman appealed passionately to the NPP team that would lead the party's campaign for election 2016 – from the national, regional, constituency and polling station levels – to see themselves as servants whose major obligation is to woo more people to join the party to rescue the country from the jaws of abject poverty.

He also charged members to shun all self-destructive acts such as backbiting and vindictiveness and forgive one another where there is rancour, so that they could display unity and peace to the public, which would make the NPP attractive to draw more people to join it to make Nana Akufo-Addo become president from January 7, 2017.

Sexy
“When we show unity, we become beautiful and sexy,” ex-President Kufuor stated, attracting a spontaneous applause from thousands of NPP delegates drawn from all the ten regions of the country that had converged at the Coronation Park for the conference.

The historic event was organised to enable the NPP discuss party issues and oil their machinery ahead of the 2016 general elections.

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, the presidential candidate and his wife, Rebecca; Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the party's vice presidential candidate and his wife, Samira; Freddie W. Blay, Acting National Chairman; all the ten regional chairmen of the NPP and other party gurus in the country and abroad were in attendance.

Infighting
Mr Kufuor openly decried the infighting that had bedevilled the party in recent times – a development which he noted has the tendency of preventing it from unseating the NDC in 2016 – urging the NPP fraternity to stop the ugly spectre and allow total peace to flourish in the party after the Sunyani conference.

“We must be honest with ourselves, there has been so much infighting within our ranks and we must put an end to it from here. We tend to suspect ourselves too much. We must sacrifice to capture the power that is beckoning us. We need everybody. From here let's stop all that and move on,” Mr Kufuor advised the NPP family.

He reiterated that political victory in 2016 was starring in the face of the party, noting that the party only needed to do self-reconciliation so that they would garner more support from Ghanaians who are fed-up with the promise and fail of the NDC government. “The NDC has no message to campaign on in 2016 after failing to act on their promises,” he pointed out.

Politics, he explained, is about winning power and implementing proper programmes and policies to develop the country and improving the lives of the people, stressing the need for the NPP to do their best to win the next elections so that Ghana could benefit from the abundant resources of competent men and women in the NPP.

Mr Kufuor was of the view that most of the NDC members are also suffering due to the government's bad leadership “so they are also craving for a change in the management of the country,” adding that if the NPP truly unites as one body, its quest to win power would be easier.

FROM I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr & Daniel Y Dayee, Sunyani