So what happened to Akufo-Addo’s free SHS? – Nduom asks

Founder and leader of the Progressive People's Party (PPP), Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, has dared Nana Akufo-Addo, to resuscitate his free SHS mantra which he trumpeted ahead of the 2012 elections, going into the 2016 polls, if the promise was not just an empty one to woe voters.

Dr. Nduom in a press statement said, “In our estimation, that free SHS slogan was at best political rhetoric by Nana Akufo-Addo to make a political statement in the 2012 election year.”

In his view, Nana Addo's free SHS promise was a deception, just as his new promise to build 216 factories in all 216 districts of the country when elected President.

He said Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP, only steal the PPP's original ideas without even knowing how to successful execute such ideas.

Below is Dr. Nduom's full statement
Press Release
It is very interesting how political seasons throw up all manner of instant change managers.

Many NPP zealots are as usual, beside themselves with joy because their Presidential candidate Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo has promised to deliver one factory in each of the 216 districts of the country, if he is elected President of Ghana.

The euphoria in that party is akin to Nana Akufo-Addo's offer of providing free education to every Ghanaian at the Senior High School (SHS) level in the run-up to the 2012 elections. In that state of excitement, market women wore Senior High School Uniforms to parade markets and streets to endorse Nana Addo's free SHS which in their estimation will curtail their burden on school fees.

Akufo-Addo's dearth at the presidency in 2012 momentarily shut the door on the so-called free SHS propaganda show-piece. It is now close to four years, and the loudness with which Akufo-Addo trumpeted the free SHS idea has become dead silence as if there is nothing really wrong with our educational system.

In our estimation, that free SHS slogan was at best political rhetoric by Nana Akufo-Addo to make a political statement in the 2012 election year.

Indeed, we of the PPP knew how untenable the Nana Akufo-Addo proposition was and therefore offered our candid opinion on how free SHS cannot flourish under an educational environment, which Primary and Junior High School levels were and are still totally rotten. How can a child benefit from free SHS if they cannot afford JHS education?

It is another election year and Nana Akufo-Addo is at what he knows best; promising heaven, when indeed his own disposition and track-record does not in any way measure up to the grandiose dream of offering nationwide factories as President.

Apart from working in the “office of I want to be President”, what else can Akufo-Addo offer in concrete terms to support such a claim? Indeed if we are looking for someone with demonstrable talents to lead Ghana from her unemployment quagmire, then certainly that cannot be Nana Akufo-Addo.

We agree everyone and his God-given talents and none can dispute Akufo-Addo's pedigree in law; just as someone else may pride himself as a Communications expert of some sort. We are not the least suggesting that a lawyer cannot lead this country. Far from that!

But if we all agree that one issue that is bugging us as a nation is job creation, then we need not look beyond Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom, the man who has within a spate of eight years created over five thousand jobs in Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, Liberia, Burkina Faso, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

No one seems to be asking Nana Akufo-Addo how he intends creating these jobs. Perhaps like his carbon copy tactics where he has virtually usurped every Nduom idea like the Separation of the Attorney General's Department from the Ministry of Justice and election of MMDCEs, Akufo-Addo is waiting to hear Dr. Nduom's take on job creation, and presto, he will make it his own.

If that is the case, Nana Addo should listen to the generous Nduom: “I will use the State and its purchasing power to facilitate for the private sector to invest and set up factories”.

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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana