By William Yaw Owusu
Thursday May 20,2010.
“Ghanaians entrusted me all these years with their ailing hearts. Surely you can trust me with the heart of our great party and the heart of our nation at a time when we all need healing”, these were the words of Professor Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng when he launched his campaign for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) flagbearership in Accra yesterday.
Professor Frimpong-Boateng is contesting the presidential race alongside Nana Akufo-Addo, Alan Kyerematen, Isaac Osei and Lawyer John Kwame Konduah.
He said: “Let the news go out to all the corners of Ghana, that a new generation has arrived on the political arena with message of hope and promise for unity, national transformation for social progress for all”, the celebrated heart surgeon told enthusiastic supporters of the NPP.
The campaign launch themed “Forging unity in the NPP family in the service of our great nation; a mission for modernization” was attended by NPP stalwarts like Harona Esseku, Daavi Ama, Nana Ohene Ntow, John Boadu, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, Emmanuel Agyarko among others.
“I am offering myself as leader of the great NPP because I want to use science and technology to transform our nation by mobilizing the enormous human and natural resources of our economy for the benefit of the present and future generations of Ghanaians.”
He said, “I am in the race for leadership of our party because I want to fight corruption as the bane of our society. And I promise I will lead by example as I have always done. Corruption blinds; corruption distorts sound judgement; indeed corruption id very expensive. It costs our continent close to 148 billion dollars a year.”
Prof. Frimpong-Boateng said “I am offering to lead the party because I believe I have the required technical skills for transforming our economy in the fight against corruption. I offer to lead in the fight against ineptitude and underdevelopment. I am offering leadership in the struggle against mediocrity, disease, drug, abuse, crime, filth, indiscipline and incompetence. I am offering leadership to create jobs for the youth.”
“I am offering to lead our great party in the 2012 presidential elections because I want to transform the way politics is done in Ghana. I want to unite our great party and guide it to rediscover the values, including love, respect and fairness towards each other that guided our founding fathers so they could survive years of sacrifice in the political wilderness”.
The professor said he would offer a ‘proactive’ not ‘reactive’ leadership and inspire Ghanaians towards greater achievement adding “I offer leadership made strong by vision, sustained by ethics, and revealed by political courage to tackle hard decisions, leadership that looks beyond the next election.”
He said that national prosperity was in sight if the NPP family united and moved away from what he calls “the looming disaster of our party being hijacked for the pursuit of personal ambitions and self-seeking adventure.”
He challenged the youth not to allow themselves to be used by self-seeking politicians saying “the youth should not allow anybody to climb over your head to power and toy with your future.”
“I want you young people to have the education that will equip you with the skills, vocation, knowledge and experience that will allow you to manufacture, fix and repair things and solve problems in this 21st century.”
He took a swipe at the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) for supervising an indisciplined society saying “thugs burn police stations and drive DCEs and MCEs from their offices and get away with it. The promise of ‘Better Ghana’ has become an illusion.”
Mr Painin, an Economist and a member of the NPP who was the chairman of the launch eulogized Prof. Frimpong-Boateng, describing him as an intellectual who is hard-working and can offer better solutions for the country’s development woes.
He said the NPP needs a leader who can ‘think outside the box’ and deliver to save the people from economic hardship saying “he can help to restore lost confidence and aggressively assault common problems of diseases and ignorance,” ,rather than an old fashioned person with outdated ideas.
“He can use modern technology to harness the human resource potential of the country for accelerated growth” warining that it will be a mistake to side-step
Professor Frimpong Boateng because any other Presidential Candidate would only entrench corruption “Criminals would have the freedom to dictate to the security agencies and corruption will reign freely if any other aspirant is elected into office,” Pianim said.
‘‘The NPP is not looking for a flagbearer because any idiot can hold the flag, so the NPP must go for a tried and tested person with lots of experience in leadership.
“He is the man of my choice, if you look at the people who are running, you can find a few of the new generation politicians. You can find people with good analytical brains, there are those who can charm the delegates but you are not just looking for somebody who can chant slogans, we are not looking for a pretty face, we are looking for somebody who can tackle life and death matters with calmness, creative listening, precision and also action.
Mr. Pianim in an interview with Citi News compared Professor Frimpong-Boateng to former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown who he said caused major developments in UK and also impacted Africa so much through the cancellation of debts as well as his pivotal role in tackling the global economic crises.
“The world has changed. Look around you. People are looking for something different. Nobody knows how to solve the problems of the world now. Even the World Bank and the IMF, they needed a Gordon Brown, somebody with a heart who thinks outside the box. Gordon Brown may not be the best, but it was he who thinking through outside the box brought debt forgiveness for Africa”.
Also see: www.dailyguideghana.com
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