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The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has organised a three-hour health walk through the principal streets of Wa in the Upper West Region.

Dubbed: “Unity Walk.” The walk which came off last Saturday attracted the leadership of the party including ex-President John Dramani Mahama, the General-Secretary, Mr Johnson Aseidu-Nketia, a former Chief of Staff, Mr Julius Debrah, and all the Members of Parliament (MP) of the region.

After the 12-kilometre walk amid music from various brass bands, they converged on the Tindamba School Park during which the various leaders called for unity of purpose to ensure that the NDC won the next general election to recapture the seat of government from the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in 2020.

Work hard

Mr Mahama noted that they were going to use democratic means to take over the reins of government since the NPP was not satisfying the aspirations and wishes of the people.

He called for hard work and transparency from the rank and file of the executive and members to win the confidence of the people.

To do this, he advised them to be decorous in their speeches and actions by avoiding insults and acrimony.

Former President Mahama encouraged members of the NDC to work hard to convince Ghanaians to bring the party back to power in the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.

According to him, although the governing NPP was failing Ghanaians, the 2020 polls would not be easy for the NDC, a situation that requires extra efforts on the part of its members to ensure victory.

‘Super incompetent'

Mr Mahama said: “NPP is super incompetent and we cannot sit down and relax and say because of their super incompetence, we are going to win the election.”

“We must work hard to convince the electorate that we deserve to be voted back to power, so we won’t depend on their super incompetence.”

Mr Mahama said the ruling NPP had failed and could be felt in the “unbearable hardship” being experienced by Ghanaians.

“People are feeling more hardship than ever today,” the immediate past President told the NDC gathering after the walk.

“You do not win an election on the weakness of your opponent. You win an election because the electorate have confidence in you. And so even though the NPP is proving super incompetent, we cannot sit and relax and say because they are super incompetent we are going to win the next election. So we are going to work hard to win.”

Former President Mahama cautioned the party faithful to be mindful of the utterances they made against their colleagues in the party because they could be used against them when they found themselves in leadership positions.

‘Don’t insult Rawlings

He counselled members of the NDC against “insulting” the founder of the party, Jerry John Rawlings.

Mr Rawlings has for some time now been commending President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, while remaining critical of the leadership of the party he founded.

This has led to utterances against Mr Rawlings from notable NDC members, with some even blaming him for the party’s 2016 election defeat to NPP and further calling for his expulsion from the party.

Mr Mahama asked party members to refrain from insulting Mr Rawlings even if they disagreed with his views.

“I want to talk about our founder. You might not like something he says or an action he is taking. You might disagree with his views but do not insult his person.”

Protests against the Ghana-US Agreement

The General Secretary, Mr Asiedu-Nketia, said Ghanaians had now regretted voting for the NPP because of the hardships they were now going through.

He sent a signal that opposition political parties would be organising demonstrations across the country to protest against the Ghana-US Agreement.

Mr Asiedu-Nketia said the task ahead was to recapture the five seats, namely the Wa-East, Sissala-West, Sissala-East, Lawra and Nandom constituencies in the region. This, he said, could only be achieved through hard work and unity which ex-President Mahama had called for.