President Mahama is a curse - Northern Peoples Forum

A group calling itself Northern People’s Forum (NPF) says people from the Northern Ghana have become more impoverished and suffered unprecedented hardships under President John Dramani Mahama, According to the group, “there are no jobs for the youth, agriculture has collapsed and development has stalled in the North since Mahama went into the Presidency. The people of the North have suffered unprecedented hardships because of his incompetence and corruption.”

President Mahama, according to the group called on the Northerners to vote for him during 2012 general elections because he was from the North and cares for them more than anyone and promised to do a lot of projects for them.

The group noted that NDC under late President JEA Mills and President Mahama promised “The establishment of integrated Shea butter processing factories in the three Northern Regions, targeting the processing of 50,000 tons of shea butter per annum for both local and international markets, Use oil and gas revenue to develop cotton and shea nut industry in the northern regions, Boost Inland valleys Rice production, as well as develop mini hydro power projects in the northern Savannah zone.

However, addressing a press conference spokesperson for the group Alhassan Yusif said “Despite these promises and the unprecedented resources that have accrued to the NDC since they assumed office in 2009, development in the North has stalled with poverty increasing astronomically leading to large majority of the people in the North being rendered paupers.”

“The saddest part of the whole Northern story under John Mahama is the fact that instead of delivering on his promises to the North and instead of investing part of the substantial inflows which have come in the last seven years in developing the North, John Mahama has used the underdevelopment of the North to craftily steal millions from the state coffers under various guises for his cronies and turned around to mislead the people of the north through the dangerous whipping up of sectional sentiments,” he stated.

After failing the people in the North, Alhassan Yusif said President Mahama has even collapsed the programmes like the National Health Insurance Scheme, School feeding etc which were providing relieve for Northerners.

Touching on the Savanna Accelerated Development Authority, he said NDC promised a seed fund of 200 million Ghana cedis and annual allocations of 100million Ghana, so per their own records we should have 900million, but they provided less than a third of this expected amount.

The saddest part of the whole SADA Debacle, Alhassan Yusif said “is that even the little that was provided was wantonly stolen and shared by John Mahama, his friends and members of his inner circle through very shady schemes.

Alhassan Yusif who accused President Mahama of preaching tribalism urged him to desist and rather concentrate on working on improving the lives of the ordinary man in the north.

“John Mahama knows that the people of the North are disappointed in him and that is why he is seeking to play the tribal card so the people forget the damage he has done to us”, he observed.

He warned that the group will be compelled to meet President Mahama squarely if he refuses to stop preaching tribalism.

Source: Michael Creg Afful

#Politics #politics #Latestinghana