Pro-New Patriotic Party (NPP) group called the NPP Network in Gonjaland, has admonished Gonjas to reject President John Dramani Mahama (their kinsman) at the December 7 polls.
According to the group’s Spokesman, Fredrick Tahidu, it will be politically suicidal to attach tribal considerations to the upcoming 2016 polls as they did at the 2012 polls.
He was addressing the media at the party’s Northern Regional secretariat where he chastised President Mahama for neglecting the Gonjaland during his two-day accounting to the people tour of the Northern Region.
Fredrick Tahiru insinuated that, President Mahama has failed the chiefs and people of Gonjaland who delivered all eight Parliamentary seats in the area to the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) at the 2012 polls.
He thereby urged all well meaning citizens of Gonjaland, to massively vote for Nana Addo Dankwh Akufo-Addo and the NPP to build on the foundation laid by the erstwhile Kufuor-led NPP administration.
Below is the statement:
MAHAMA SNUBBED GONJAS AGAIN
A PRESS CONFERENCE BY THE NPP NETWORK IN GONJA LAND
Ladies and gentlemen of the media, we are hugely grateful to you personally and your various media houses for responding to our call. We have called you here this morning to come and partner us to convey our grievances to H.E the President of the Republic of Ghana, John Mahama, on his recent visit to the Northern Region and on a wide range of pressing concerns militating against us, his own people.
On Wednesday 13th July, 2016, the wrecked train of Accounting to The People Tour, carrying the incompetent president, H.E John Dramani Mahama brought the re-election campaign message of the NDC to the Northern Region.
The streets of Tamale were empty because only few people came out to catch a glimpse at the president. The President was seen shamefully waving at the story buildings and some other strange objects on the streets. Heads of basic schools in the Tamale metropolis were compelled to chase school kids with horse canes onto the streets but still, the streets were empty.
The NPP Network in Gonja Land wishes to state emphatically that, the president’s failure to include any of the administrative districts in Gonja Land in his so-called tour of the Northern Region was not only arbitrary waste of state resources aimed at deceiving the people but also a senseless ploy, calculated at bathing the chiefs and people of Gonja Land with disrespect and naked propaganda.
The presence of the President again, was yet another opportunity for him to rubble rouse and engage in unclothed rhetoric rather than accounting to the people. He was instead engaged in what can at best be described as accounting to himself and party cronies.
The Northern Region has thirty one (31) political constituencies and twenty six (26) administrative districts, but the president visited about fifteen (15) districts in his much publicized but abysmally patronized tour of the region. For the records, the president’s two day’s tour of the region was more or less whistle stops at some districts rather than elaborate tours.
The following urgent questions are worth asking:
Why did the president not visit any of the eight (8) political constituencies in Gonja Land to account to us his stewardship?
Can his failure to visit any of the political constituencies in Gonja Land be translated to mean, he did not do anything for us and therefore had nothing to account for?
Could it also be said that the president does not respect us, the electorates in Gonja Land and therefore did not deem it fit or prudent to visit and account to us?
Indeed, we are not knocked down at all by the president’s deliberate disrespectful decision to embarrass the chiefs and people of his native land. This is not the first time that Gonjalanders have been disrespected and politically pushed around by H.E John Mahama.
During the annual Gonja Land Youth Association Meeting which was held in Kpembe, Mr Mahama shunned the function and was accosted somewhere in the Volta Region attending church service. He did so consciously because there is nothing to show on the slate of performance:
The president snubbed the people of Daboya/Mankarigu because; the Community Day School which is under construction is just about 20% complete. The polyclinic in Daboya built by the previous NPP government can only boast of just five (5) beds in one ward serving both men and women at the same time.
The president snubbed the people of Yapei/Kusawgu because; there is nothing to account for in a district where animals and human beings are in a competition for drinking water.
The president couldn’t go to Damango because he has failed his mother’s clan. The president snubbed the people of Kpembe because; work on the sixty (60) bed capacity ultra-modern hospital started by the previous Kuffour led NPP government has come to a standstill and the project is sinking at site. Contractors have chosen the court as the appropriate site. Work is speedily progressing at the court because of some corrupt hands.
In Bole, his own backyard, there is nothing concrete to be pinpointed as a would-be legacy when H.E John Dramani Mahama joins the club or league of ex-presidents on 7th January, 2017. Our sources from Bole, the homeland of H.E the President hinted that, the final funeral rites of Hajia Abibata Nneba Sluwu, biological mother of H.E President Mahama which was supposed to take place in Bole on Sunday July 31st has been rescheduled. The venue has been moved from her family house in Bole to the forecourt of the state house in Accra.
We can confidently state without any fear of contradiction that, H.E President John Mahama was advised to shift the venue from Bole to Accra to avoid the whole exercise serving as an incubator of disgrace and embarrassment because some African Presidents were billed to attend. President Mahama shifted the final funeral rites of his mother to Accra because he doesn’t want his collogues Heads of state to find out how he has neglected his own people in Bole\Bamboi.
It has always been the wish of every Gonja, rich or poor, old or young, man or woman that after passing on, his or her body be laid to rest in Gonjaland and his or her funeral rites performed in Gonjaland and not on a strange land. John Mahama have denied his own mother her wish. How can he fulfil the many wishes of Ghanaians when he has failed to seek for perfect peace for the soul of his mother Hajia Abibata Nneba Sluwu?
My dear friends in the media, the president visited some constituencies through the use of state helicopter. Indeed, the signs were clear from top to bottom that he has failed his exams when it comes to development and the provision of infrastructures. It is because of that the President sent the infantile Parliamentary Candidate of the NDC in the Tamale North Constituency, Alhassan Suhuyini to play the final tribal card. The president’s ineptitude views have left him with no legacy and convincing political message and for that matter; he is appealing to northerners to vote for him because he is one of us in the midst of poverty and deprivation. We don’t want to dwell so much on the obvious use of state resources for NDC activities but there are some fundamental questions we wish to raise our hands and ask;
Why didn’t he travel by road? Did he travel by air to avoid the terrible bad roads in the region?
There are several questions to ask of the failed visit of the President to the Northern Region. One thing that is obviously clear is that, the visit of John Mahama was more of a jolly ride than a visit to account to the people. The stand of the NPP Network in Gonja Land is that, if the President had indeed done something in Gonja Land worth accounting for, he would have made time to thoroughly tour all the eight (8) political constituencies in his own backyard.
At this juncture, we wish to appeal to all Gonjalanders especially stakeholders on the land, to as a matter of urgency, join us in this voice count protest to send a signal of our displeasure to the doorsteps of H.E John Dramani Mahama on the way and manner our land has been neglected for far too long by one of our own. The man who made promises to us when he wanted to be elected president is now running away from his own people.
Ladies and gentlemen, may we also use this opportunity to thank the people of the region for the low reception they accorded the president in protest to his low development of the area. The NPP NETWORK IN GONJA LAND is very grateful to all Northerners, most especially the chiefs and people of Tamale for refusing to be partners in crime. It is always said that ‘’when leaders tell lies and followers clap for them, then they are all partners in crime. To the people of Tamale again, we say to you, ‘’Ansan ne kushun’’ (thanks a lot)
Furthermore, the NPP NETWORK IN GONJA LAND wish to condemn the culture of forcing students to stand by the road side to wave at the President anytime he is in the region. This act of lining up school pupils to dance to sirens from the Presidential motorcade amidst waving is not only insulting but also reminds us of the colonial era when students were lined up on the streets to sing praise songs for the colonial masters. This relic of colonialism must stop.
In conclusion, we want to call on all the people of Gonja Land and the entire people of Northern Region to come out and vote massively for Nana Addo Danquah Akuffo Addo and the New Patriotic Party so that we will see the real difference between a non-performing President who strives on Machiavellian propaganda and the one who truly and genuinely cares for the people. It is our hope that, as voters we will set our minds on the collective interest of the larger society rather than the parochial agenda of a few covetous individuals.
THANK YOU.
Fredrick Tahiru
National Communications Director
(NPP Network in Gonja Land)
0209251742 or 0244691177
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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/citifmonline.com/Ghana