Many chieftains of governing New Patriotic Party, NPP, are disguising academic credentials in governance in a desperate bid to cover up the importance of the integrity and educational achievements of National Democratic Congress’ running mate.
The opposition party last week unanimously accepted the candidature of Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang as the Vice-Presidential candidate of the umbrella party ahead of the 2020 polls.
Her nomination makes her the first female running mate for a major political party in the annals of the country.
The governing New Patriotic Party has since the announcement of Prof. Opoku-Agyemang not rested in their relentless campaign to smear the learned educationist.
Barely an hour after her nomination, the Director of Communication for the NPP, Yaw Buabeng Asamoah called a press conference only to flay Naana’s appointment arguing that her selection as a running mate is an insult to Ghanaians.
For the Adentan Lawmaker, Professor Naana Opoku-Agyemang was a bad choice for the opposition because she supervised the cancellation of research and book allowance for University Lecturers as minister for education.
This claimed has turned out to be false by Media Foundation for West Africa, an independent fact-checking institute.
Just when Ghanaians thought some sanity will be restored, no mean a person than the Majority Leader and Minister for parliamentary affairs joined the attacks.
For the misogynist Leader of Ghana’s parliament, Prof Naana cannot be described as president of the Republic of Ghana in the absence of the President.
Faulting Mahama over his nomination, the Ashanti Regional Chairman of the NPP, Bernard Antwi-Bosiako, affectionately referred to as ‘Wontumi’ urged the voting community to reject Prof Naana Opoku-Agyemang because, for him, the former education minister looks like a witch.
Even though the deputy campaign manager of Akufo-Addo’s second coming, Mustapha Hamid has called on the party to desist from verbally abusing the learned Professor, the rank and file of the party are yet to pay attention to his call.
Joining the attacking dogs to berate Naana Opoku-Agyemang is Dr. Mathew Opoku-Prempeh who just returned from isolation center after contracting deadly coronavirus.
In a yet-to-be-aired interview by the Multimedia Group monitored by this paper, the Minister said his predecessor at the education ministry will be subjected to the fire every politician will be subjected to during the campaign period.
He has since been explaining the undercover operations of the Jean Mensa’s Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). According to Dr. Mathew Prempeh, moderators of the Institute’s debate sections are known to be exchangers of debate questions for political appointments.
“We will talk about integrity not only about education. I will talk about integrity because I remember that as Director of Elections 2012 someone went to plant a question which was not part of the questions during the IEA debate for John Mahama to answer so she could be given a Ministerial position, we will talk about it”. He said, suggesting that the only reason why Prof. Naana became a minister under John Dramani Mahama was because she leaked question(s) to then-candidate Mahama.
Interestingly, both Prof. Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang and Kojo Oppong Nkrumah who served the IEA as moderators for the 2012 presidential debate organized by the IEA, later got an appointment and or favor in NDC and NPP government, respectively.
While Naana got appointed as minister for education under NDC, Ofoase Ayeribi Constituency was given to Kojo Oppong Nkrumah on the silver platter for similar reasons at IEA.
Oppong Nkrumah was later elevated as from Deputy Minister to Minister of Information, and Prof Naana Opoku-Agyemang the running mate for the opposition NDC Flagbearer John Mahama.
Jane Mensa, the former Executive Director of IEA is today enjoying a political appointment under 2012 Flagbearer of the then opposition NPP.
Charlotte Osei was forcibly replaced with Jean Mensa as the Electoral Commission to the chagrin of right-thinking persons of the society.
Prior to the removal of Charlotte for Jean to take over the commission, Jean held herself as a neutral arbiter.
Connoisseurs are wondering if it formed the basis of candidate Akufo-Addo refusing to appear on the IEA platform for the debate in 2016?
According to the Minister for Education, it was a crime for Prof Naana to have appended her signature to demand the release of the ‘Montie’ trio.
“I also know someone who some group of men said they will rape the Chief Justice of the land, a woman who went to support them. We will look into all these before we come and look at education.” He reiterated
NAPO says the New Patriotic Party will talk about integrity issues with regards to the running mate of the largest opposition party before they will come and focus on her records at the Education Ministry.
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