GHANA POLITICS: SAMARI CLEARS HIMSELF AND AKUFO-ADDO

GHANA POLITICS: SAMARI CLEARS HIMSELF AND AKUFO-ADDO

 Edward Adeti’s Report, Upper East, Ghana

Akufo-Addo

Former Upper East Regional Minister, Mr. Alhassan Samari, has cleared his own name and that of the Presidential Candidate of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Danquah Akufo-Addo, from a public view at Garu-Tempane that the two politicians are responsible for the 31st December 2007 episode of the protracted ethnic bang at Bawku.

Mr. Samari, a defeated parliamentary candidate in 2008 and resurrected parliamentary contender for 2012, said the downfall of the elephant at Garu-Tempane was largely due to the poisonous impression created by detractors in the Kusasis-dominated area that “Nana and I caused the Bawku conflict.”  The former Regional Minister was addressing an NPP annual delegates’ conference at Garu where an opposition-fatigued crowd of supporters assembled from the various zones in the constituency to chart a victory path ahead of the 2012 elections.

Disunity within the party in the constituency as well as his all-demanding administrative position as Regional Minister in 2008, according to Mr. Samari, were among other factors that robbed him of victory in the parliamentary election in the area. He said even though the National Democratic Congress (NDC) clinched victory after it succeeded in peddling lies on the NPP about the Bawku conflict, it became clear to Ghanaians after the elections that he and Nana Akufo-Addo had no hands in the prolonged ethnic unrest.

The former Regional Minister polled 15,650 (45.9%) votes in the 2008 parliamentary election that saw NDC’s Dominic Azimbe Azumah win with 16,318 (47.8%) votes. Nana Akufo-Addo gathered 11,881 (35.52%) ballots whilst the then-candidate Professor John Evans Atta Mills attracted 21,572 (64.48%) votes in the presidential run-off at Garu-Tempane.

Mr. Samari, who is yet to recover from the shock that Ghanaians still booted the NPP out of power in spite of what he described as unprecedented developments initiated by the NPP during its 8-year rule, reminded the people of the benefits they had derived from such interventions as the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), the Ghana School Feeding Programme (GSFP), the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) and the Micro-finance and Small Loans Centre (MASLOC) under the same Kufuor-led Government that created the Garu-Tempane District in 2004 and established the Tempane Junior High School as well as the Tempane Senior High School.

He also expressed worry that the Garu market project, which is supposed to include a clinic and a kindergarten structure, and the construction of a bridge to link Garu and Bawku had been at a standstill since the NPP lost power in 2008. The parliamentary candidate, whilst calling for unity and pleading with the delegates for forgiveness on behalf of himself and anyone who might have willingly or accidentally wronged them in the past, urged the NPP supporters to use the achievements of the party as an effective campaign tool. He also entreated them to intensify their membership drive and go all out in their numbers to register whenever the time was due for the biometric voter registration exercise.

The Constituency Chairman, Mr. Joseph Akudbilla, said even though the NPP cherished a property-owning democracy, no one could deny that the same party introduced the best pro-poor policies in Ghana since independence. He booed the NDC for exhibiting nothing except what he listed as myriad of excuses, vindictiveness, property grabbing, failed economic policies and lip service to the proposed Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA).

“The sixteen years in Parliament of Honourable Dominic Azumah has practically nothing to show for all the time he has wasted in Parliament. By his ineptitude, attempts to upgrade the Tempane Senior High School to a boarding status have failed,” Mr. Akudbilla said and added, “Let us work hard and keep faith with the NPP because there is hope for a better future under the leadership of Nana Akufo-Addo and Honourable Alhassan Samari after the period of the bitter Ghana we are experiencing at present.”

Mr. Yaw Mort, Upper East Regional Organiser of the NPP, whilst taking the delegates through the party’s constitution, urged the supporters to protect the name and unity of the party always. He said the constitution enjoined them to vote for both the flagbearer and the parliamentary candidate in the constituency. He stressed that the victory of the flagbearer rested so much on the level of support extended to the parliamentary candidate, adding that the NPP could not afford to lose concentration in the constituency ahead of the 2012 elections.   

“If we fail to win the 2012 elections, posterity would never forgive us. Ghanaians are waiting for the NPP to rescue them from the deceitful and wicked NDC Government. We just hope that by the end of 2012, the wait is over. We must go into the elections with unity of purpose,” Mr. Mort emphasised.