Akufo -Addo advises NDC to go to Parliament

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has described the passing of the Representation of the People's Bill by Parliament on February 23 2006 as a landmark event in the history of Ghana. It is also another victory in Ghana's democratic match. These remarks were welcomed with standing joy by hundreds of Ghanaians who thronged to listen to him at Tottenham, North London, where he was the guest speaker at the 5th annual forum of the Ghanaian community organised by the Ghana High Commission.

According to the Foreign Minister, the only way left is for the minority NDC to call off their boycott and resume attendance in the House. He said, ''peaceful protest and agitation is an essential attribute of any viable democracy; but the work of the state must go on.'' This means in another measure: '' the strategic enhancement of the umbilical links between Ghanaians at home and those overseas.''

In a lecture partly intellectual but also appealing to patriotic sensibilities, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo under the topic, ''Accelerating Development, Deepening Good Governance'' which was also the general theme said, Ghanaians both at home and abroad need to take a more decisive lead in the development of their nation.'' We cheat ourselves if we buy the lie that we need outsiders to teach us regional cooperation and entrepreneurial initiative'' he added as he deliberated more on his new found project, Economic Patriotism and Indigenous capitalism, an intellectual discourse which places patriotism in the centre of economic growth and subsequent development. It was first at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, where on February 15 2006 he delivered Ghana- A Future Perspective then at St. Peter's College, Oxford University (on February 20 2006), where his father graduated and later given an honorary doctorate. There, under the invitation of Prof. Bernard Silverman, the Master of College and the Oxford Research Network on Government in Africa, he spoke on, Ghana: The Democratic Project.

Ghana's High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Isaac Osei chaired the meeting.