By Herbert Krapa
hkrapa@gmail.com
www.hkrapa.blogspot.com
Delicate NPP delegates go to the polls tomorrow to elect the party’s flag bearer for the 2012 general elections and from all indications the man who will be the next president of Ghana. I have been everywhere with Nana Akufo-Addo and I have seen and heard it all.
Nana Akufo-Addo needed about 20,300 votes in 2008 to have won presidency. We set out on our campaign tour from the central region and moved on to Western and Brong-Ahafo. By the time we got to Ashanti with our campaign, we could feel strongly, more than ten folds, those 20,300 votes swinging our way.
We have sold our message of hope and prosperity to the delegates of the party and we believe they have accepted the message as they do Nana Addo’s candidature.
In 2008, Nana Addo put up a good showing. It will be the first time in the history of the fourth Republic, that a first time candidate will win more than 47% of the votes, 49.77%. Nana Addo was not annihilated in that election. Truth be told, Nana Addo beat President Mills, then Candidate Mills by over 100,000 votes in the first round of the election. Akufo-Addo demonstrated clearly, per the outcome of that election, the strength in his candidature. Even when we were losing our majority in parliament, Akufo-Addo was soaring closer and closer Presidency. By the end of the first round, he was ahead of everything, everybody: NPP MP’s and Mills.
In the second round, the campaign message of the NDC was simple. We have parliament, give us president, and it proved to be an election winning message.
In government, what is the message? The NDC are yet to know what it is they will come into the 2012 elections with as a message. Founder, Jerry Rawlings has said that he has no message of hope for the Ghanaian people come 2012.
Power has fallen on the streets and the NPP is going for it. We have conducted ourselves well in opposition and I applaud the leadership and rank and file of the party for that. The one thing that we have to ensure as a party to ensure victory for our country in 2012 is unity, and from the way the internal campaigns have been conducted, I am confident of a very united NPP after August 7.
The grassroots of the party has been reinvigorated since the Electoral College expansion of 2009. Today, there is renewed energy in the party as a result of that exercise. Akufo-Addo championed it. He has been thinking about it since 1998. In that year, when he run against former President Kufuor, for the flag bearer slot of the party, Akufo-Addo said “the implementation of my 20,000 polling station executive strategy will not only ensure that the polls are adequately policed but also serve as a counter task force to counter false and harmful propaganda in the party.” The Chronicle newspaper indeed reported this. Today, he remains unwavering in his vision for the grassroots of the party and has demonstrated this by strongly advocating for the expansion of the electoral college of the party to include polling station executives. He is thinking about the grassroots of the party. Indeed his words are “the grassroots of our party is strong, our party is strong.”
Almost all the NPP MP’s endorsed Nana Akufo-Addo in their respective constituencies. I sat through all the programmes everywhere and one message was constant to their constituents: we are rooting for Nana because when we come to you, you say if we don’t bring Nana Addo you won’t vote.
Candidate Kufuor did not win the presidency the first time, neither did candidate Mills. Today the one thing they both have in common is the presidency and tomorrow, by the Grace of God, Akufo-Addo will be another step close to that rank.
When Akufo-Addo wins tomorrow, by 67% or more I believe, it will be a victory for party and country. The NDC have showed clearly that they lack the ideas, policies and programmes that can help move our country forward. Today the Ghanaian people know how painful another two years of the NDC rule will be. They are looking to us in the NPP to come and salvage them form the suffering and deprivation that the failing NDC administration is imposing on them and we cannot fail them.
To all NPP delegates, I appeal, humbly, that you vote for the winning team. The Akufo-Addo victory train is here for all of us, NPP, Ghana. I know that you are convinced it is the train to join but I also know that others are trying to convince you to disembark. When they try, by the power of your thumb, bark loudly at them.
God bless our party and country.