Akuffo Addo, Bawumia, Free Education & NPP’s 2000 Manifesto

NPP’s textbook economics and political JJC Bawumia was heard last week stating that Ghana’s Founder Dr. Kwame Atoapoma Nkrumah would not have given Northerners free education if he had listened to the NDC. Interestingly, Mahamudu Bawumia failed to inform his audience that there was no way Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah could have given the free education if he had succumbed to the UP/NPP machinations and blackmailing that sought to undermine the independence of the country. Maybe political newcomer Bawumia doesn’t know his party’s history and therefore must be reminded that one of his forebears Kofi Abrefa Busia, led a delegation to the UK in the heat of Nkrumah’s agitation for independence and without mincing words enquired from the colonialists as to why they were in a hurry to grant independence to us. Busia also pleaded with UK and reminded them that their colonial experiment in the then Gold Coast had not been completed yet and therefore they should stay. To the UP/NPP, the Gold Coast which was fighting hard to extricate itself from the shackles of colonialism was a guinea pig being used for experiment! Where would Bawumia be today if his masters had succeeded in turning the country to a guinea pig for experiment? I hope Bawumia has taken a lesson from how his predecessor Aliu Mahama was used and dumped by the same NPP like a piece of smelling elephant crap?
It’s quite amusing that the defeated 2008 NPP presidential candidate William Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo and his running mate deem it convenient to continue with UP/NPP campaign of naked lies and deceptions. We recall that the man, unabashedly took his desperation and campaign of lies international by stating in a BBC live interview that he would embark on a free senior high school education in the unlikely event he is elected president of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana. Reminiscent of another desperate candidate Mitt Romney of the U.S Republican Party, Akuffo Addo has been mumbling and fumbling on this so-called free high school education policy with no clear focus as to how he would fund it. Any objective and discerning follower of Ghana politics gets to know quickly that Mr. All-Die-Be-Die-Bottom-Yen-Akanfuo Akuffo Addo doesn’t mean the hollow free education mantra he is parading about when he stated recently that Day Students will have free meals in his free-for-all communist education initiative. Logically, which student would want to be a Day Student if everything, including meals, is free and paid for by demagogue Akuffo Addo?

It is well noted that that disgruntled Akuffo Addo’s BBC interview as well as his encounter at the NPP’s proxy affiliate IEA proved disastrous as he was cornered and found wanting as he could not explicitly indicate as to how he would fund his education policy he has been touting all over the place.

Ironically, while M. William Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo claims to believe in Ghana, he chose a foreign country to highlight his so-called free education policy but as he was exposed and cornered like a caged rat, the presidential wannabe stated that he would unfold his funding strategy to the electorates back home in Ghana. Haha, so why didn’t he divulge his plan in Ghana in the first place but chose the UK, instead? As if his UK humiliation was not big enough, the man faced a similar fate in Ghana at the IEA encountered when he was floored by an eight year old Angela Mensah whose poignant and incisive questions floored Mr. At All Cost Akuffo Addo.

Akin to NPP’s precambrian campaign of lies and deceptions as manifested by Akuffo Addo’s current postures, Chapter 5 of their 2000 manifesto exposes how hollow this party is and the insults they’ve heaped on Ghanaians while taking the good people of the country for granted.
NPP unequivocally states in that chapter that they would turn all slums in Ghana to apartment complexes in the country. The same piece of worthless paper states that they would turn all “chop bars” in Ghana to first class restaurants while succinctly stating that all Ghanaians would be employed if voted into office in 2000 and that they would be railway lines from Accra to Bawumia’s home region in the North. Can Bawumia point to the railway line from Accra to the North for all to see?

Ladies and gentlemen reading me, the above promises are categorically and vividly catalogued in chapter 5 of NPP’s 2000 manifesto which they chose to render useless or simply ignored as they couldn’t accomplish a single one of them or because they didn’t believe in what they were promising the good people of Ghana.

In comparing the NDC and NPP records of education for students and housing civil servants in Ghana, one can point to a number of polytechnics and universities which the NDC can take credit of. At least, we know of the UDS which was single handedly established by Rawlings of the NDC; the three-and-a-half year rule of the Mills/ Mahama NDC can boast of two universities, one in the Bono Ahafo Refion and the other one in the Volta Region. The NDC has also made consistent efforts to eliminate schools under trees bequeathed to it by the insensitive Akuffo Addo / Kuffor NPP.
Can Akuffo Addo and his Bawumia boldly tell Ghanaians any significant educational accomplishment (s) they chalked during the eight miserable and agonizing years that they were in office?
NDC’s vision of housing infrastructure in the country is bar none when it comes to the question of housing civil servants; we know of SSNIT Flats dotted in most of the regional capitals of the country –Ghana and I know of one ex-NPP MP Kwadwo Adjei Darko living in one of them at Sunyani when he was a tutor at SUSEC; there was also these two staunch NPP journalists at Sunyani living there, too. The NDC can also boast of similar SSNIT Flats at Dansoman, Sakumono, Adenta and Taifa housing civil servants.

Can we say same about the NPP? Were they able to put up a single edifice to house civil servants in the country during their 8-year reign in which Mr. Atiwa Koraa Ye Kyere Won Biribi Kakraa- Akuffo Addo featured prominently? Interestingly, an unlettered NPP apologist was arguing the other day that they have “uncompleted affordable housing” in Ghana; uncompleted! And we know the fate of those uncompleted buildings and their intended beneficiaries. Even at their foundation levels, Aliu Mahama, Akumfi Ameyaw (unfortunately he is an MP in my hometown), JA Kofi Diawuo Kuffuor, Theresa Kuffuor, Amma Kuffuor, Serwaa Kuffuor and many NPP followers were allocated these yet to be completed buildings instead of going to their intended beneficiaries – civil servants. Isn’t this shameful? How many SSNIT Flats went to JJ Rawlings, Mills or Mahama, their respective families and followers?

Besides sharing the uncompleted affordable houses among NPP leaders, their family members, and friends, that party (NPP) can also boast of turning a place in Accra to a magnificent and imposing building –Hotel Waa Waa; that was how NPP turned “slums to apartment complexes” as promised in the chapter five of their 2000 manifesto.

They also promised turning “Agya Koo Manu’s Barima Nkwan Chop Bar” to a first class restaurant but the question is where is it? Are the “chop bars” at the Kaneshie-Takoradi Station turned to first class restaurants? Was Maame Akoley’s “chop bar” turned to a first class restaurant? How about “At All’s” and many “Chop Bars” littered by the roadsides, inner-cities and villages in the country? Did the NPP turn them to first class restaurants instead of them patronizing, eating and drinking quality foreign wines in first class, nice and plush restaurants the world over during their incessant travels and tours?

The least talk about hollow promises of offering jobs to all Ghanaians, the better; for we know that the youth whose hopes were raised were mercilessly beating up when they marched to the ministries to enquire about the jobs that were promised them by JA Kofi Diawuo Kuffuor and his brigand of liars spearheaded by Akuffo Addo. Indeed, the unemployed youth who trooped to Accra between 2001 and 2008 doubled as evidenced by the swelling sea of young men and women selling dog chains, chewing sticks, matches, apples, car dusters and what have you by various road sides in the city. On the flip side, the NPP managed to offer jobs to their cronies and a bankrupted Kuffuor’s son who was railroaded by one of his business partners leading to a protracted case still pending at the courts.

It is clear from the above that Akuffo Addo and his political neophyte Bawumia’s glittering and lofty promises of turning Ghana to heavens are nothing but tenuous and therefore untenable; they must therefore stop insulting the intelligence of Ghanaians and engage in real, achievable and pragmatic solutions to the country’s problems instead of these inferior tactics calculated to hoodwink Ghanaians to voting for them At All Cost. I call on the NDC’s communication team to grab this manifesto and highlight on the inherent lies and deceptions in them to discerning Ghanaians to enable them make informed decisions before casting their votes on December 7th.


Chris Gyamfi Boteng, aka Koo Boateng, Philadelphia