{"id":260469,"date":"2016-10-21T16:26:10","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T16:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=260469"},"modified":"2016-10-21T16:26:10","modified_gmt":"2016-10-21T16:26:10","slug":"electorate-loses-if-npp-declines-debate-challenge-kwakye-ofosu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=260469","title":{"rendered":"Electorate loses if NPP declines debate challenge &#8211; Kwakye-Ofosu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The electorate stands the most to lose from the New Patriotic Party\u2019s (NPP) decision not to avail its flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, to debate President John Mahama, Deputy Communication Minister,\u00a0Felix Kwakye-Ofosu has said.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to <strong>Citi News<\/strong>, he said the ongoing impasse over a potential one-on-one debate between the two leading contenders in the 2016 presidential race \u201cis a matter of regret for the electorate. It is the electorate that is poorer for it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;ea3dAkfuarJb2ZaXgN0IkOO3Ri9jnA5z&#8221;]In rebuttals to President John Mahama\u2019s <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/10\/20\/ghanaians-deserve-debate-between-nana-addo-and-me-mahama\/\">recent challenges<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0to debate Nana Akufo-Addo on issues of the economy, the NPP has asked for a response to the 170 questions laid out by the NPP running mate, Dr, Mahamadu Bawumia\u00a0<span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/09\/08\/bawumia-to-deliver-lecture-on-ghanas-economy-today\/\">during his lecture<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0on the state of the Ghanaian economy in September.<\/p>\n<p>The NPP is also <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2016\/10\/20\/mahamas-debate-challenge-hypocritical-mustapha-hamid\/\">requesting a formal approach<\/a><\/strong><\/span> from the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) if any possible\u00a0headway would be made on the issue.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nana Addo running away<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>But Mr. Kwakye-Ofosu suggested that Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP are simply running from a debate with President Mahama.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is obvious that the flagbearer of the NPP and his party are showing a clean pair of heels in the matter of a debate between President Mahama and himself.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is obvious that the NPP realizes their flagbearer\u2019s limitations with regards to having the sort of grasp of national issues that will position him to convincingly engage in a debate with his opponents in order to allow for the electorate to make informed choices.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NDC has held that the NPP\u2019s criticism of the economy is not anchored on facts thus they have been misinforming the electorate.<\/p>\n<p>The Deputy Minister explained that, \u201cwe in the NDC campaign were under the impression that a debate platform where he goes toe-to-toe with President Mahama will be the most appropriate platform for him [Nana Addo] to raise the claims that he has been making about this country and receive the appropriate responses.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut lo and behold, he and his party do not appear to have the confidence to engage President Mahama,\u201d Mr. Kwakye-Ofosu added<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>By: Delali Adogla-Bessa\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The electorate stands the most to lose from the New Patriotic Party\u2019s (NPP) decision not to avail its flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, to debate President John Mahama, Deputy Communication Minister,\u00a0Felix Kwakye-Ofosu has said. Speaking to Citi News, he said the ongoing impasse over a potential one-on-one debate between the two leading contenders in the 2016 presidential [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":166723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11],"tags":[2580,2356,3,464,156,129,56],"class_list":["post-260469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-slider-1","category-top-stories","tag-felix-kwakye-ofosu","tag-ghana-elections","tag-ghana-news","tag-mahama","tag-nana-addo","tag-ndc","tag-npp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=260469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/166723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=260469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=260469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=260469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}