Nduom kicks against perpetual campaign mood (17 October 2014)
The 2012 Presidential hopeful of the Progressive Peoples Party
(PPP), Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, has asked the media to spare him questions
about his political ambition for now.
According to him, the nation must have time for development after elections and not remain in perpetual election mood.
“We cannot be in a perpetual campaign mode in this country. There is a time for building a nation. There is time for making contributions to solve our problems. As for politics, there is time for it, when it comes, we would deal with it,” he said at a media engagement in Accra last Tuesday.
At the programme, which Dr Nduom said was his last media engagement for the year, issues including compulsory basic education in Ghana, energy, the economy and politics were highlighted.
Falling short of making a definite pronouncement on his political future, the two-time presidential candidate said “Election time will come soon enough and when it comes, we would all know where we stand. Some people have decided that right after the last election, they would be campaigning.”
“If we do politics for four years, how does society improve for anybody? Unless you have so much money that you don’t care what happens. That is even more dangerous than politics.”
But as if to give a hint of who the next PPP leader would be, he said the party was working hard to transfer things to the younger generation.
“There are some people younger than me, but we want younger people to take our place. We are hopefully teaching them the right things,” he said.
Election of MMDCEs
Dr Nduom, a former assemblyman, who has been championing the election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCES), said assembly elections held the key to community development.
Education
According to Dr Nduom, the failure of successive governments to make basic education compulsory was because they were not willing to commit a lot more resources into building infrastructure
He observed that it was unfortunate that after 22 years of the coming into force of the 1992 Constitution, Ghana was still struggling to provide free and compulsory education for Ghanaian children.
“If we want to grow somewhere as a nation, we must make basic education free and compulsory,” he said.
He observed that uneducated people tend to be poor and those mainly deceived by politicians and religious leaders.
Energy
He said it was impossible to solve the country’s energy crisis within a year as there were generation and distribution problems that needed to be tackled in the long-term.
“There are some distribution equipment in the energy sector that have not been replaced since the 1960s,” he said.
“It is a giant problem that we must all be told how big it is and how we could solve it. We must find temporary solutions and plan for long and medium-term solutions,” he added.
He,therefore, said whenever someone said the problem would end in six months or less, the person knew it won’t happen but would still promise just to make people happy for a few seconds.
“When you make people happy for a few seconds and the problem bounces back, it makes them angrier,” he added.
“We cannot be in a perpetual campaign mode in this country. There is a time for building a nation. There is time for making contributions to solve our problems. As for politics, there is time for it, when it comes, we would deal with it,” he said at a media engagement in Accra last Tuesday.
At the programme, which Dr Nduom said was his last media engagement for the year, issues including compulsory basic education in Ghana, energy, the economy and politics were highlighted.
Falling short of making a definite pronouncement on his political future, the two-time presidential candidate said “Election time will come soon enough and when it comes, we would all know where we stand. Some people have decided that right after the last election, they would be campaigning.”
“If we do politics for four years, how does society improve for anybody? Unless you have so much money that you don’t care what happens. That is even more dangerous than politics.”
But as if to give a hint of who the next PPP leader would be, he said the party was working hard to transfer things to the younger generation.
“There are some people younger than me, but we want younger people to take our place. We are hopefully teaching them the right things,” he said.
Election of MMDCEs
Dr Nduom, a former assemblyman, who has been championing the election of metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives (MMDCES), said assembly elections held the key to community development.
Education
According to Dr Nduom, the failure of successive governments to make basic education compulsory was because they were not willing to commit a lot more resources into building infrastructure
He observed that it was unfortunate that after 22 years of the coming into force of the 1992 Constitution, Ghana was still struggling to provide free and compulsory education for Ghanaian children.
“If we want to grow somewhere as a nation, we must make basic education free and compulsory,” he said.
He observed that uneducated people tend to be poor and those mainly deceived by politicians and religious leaders.
Energy
He said it was impossible to solve the country’s energy crisis within a year as there were generation and distribution problems that needed to be tackled in the long-term.
“There are some distribution equipment in the energy sector that have not been replaced since the 1960s,” he said.
“It is a giant problem that we must all be told how big it is and how we could solve it. We must find temporary solutions and plan for long and medium-term solutions,” he added.
He,therefore, said whenever someone said the problem would end in six months or less, the person knew it won’t happen but would still promise just to make people happy for a few seconds.
“When you make people happy for a few seconds and the problem bounces back, it makes them angrier,” he added.
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