Political Activist Kwame Asare Obeng (A Plus) has scored the Akufo-Addo government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) 30% for its performance in office.
According to him, President Nana Akufo-Addo, his preferred presidential candidate, who he boldly defended and for whom he rallied support ahead of the 2016 elections, has been a disappointment.
A Plus said Akufo-Addo has performed below par and suggested that the President has been dishonest to Ghanaians.
“If you tell us John Mahama is doing something which is not good and that you will come and do better but you come and do worse; … You tell us John Mahama is practising a family-and-friends government and we all believed you and went and told the electorate that John Mahama is enforcing a family-and-friends regime and you came to power and introduced family-and-friends in government, it means you are someone who does not tell the truth,” A Plus bemoaned.
He continued: “If you tell me that John Mahama is incompetent and one of the reasons was that he had 87 ministers and I go and campaign. You tell me to wake up at dawn to go and do door-to-door [campaigns], moving from room to room at Accra Polytechnic, entering ladies rooms and assuring them that when Nana Addo comes to power, he will reduce the number of ministers and then you come to power and you increase it from 87 to 120-plus, and there are ministries that have three deputy ministers, Chief Directors… when it happens that way, then you have disappointed the people who love you,” he lamented.
The musician, who said he stands for the truth, added that: “The followers of NPP, who believed [the things he told them] are disappointed, because you told us that the Ghana cedi under John Mahama was GHS3.7 [to USD 1] and it has made the cedi very weak, but you have rather taken us to 5-plus, and that is what hurts. It isn’t that anyone hates Nana and feels he is a bad person”.
A Plus, who fell out with the NPP over some disagreements in the past, noted: “We followed Nana Addo because of his knowledge, ideas and plans, so, if you come and do what the erstwhile government did, then we are disappointed in you. That is why I will give the NPP government a very low rating because ever since we came to power, it has always been a comparison between the incompetent former president and the one that we brought to do the job. That is not what we want, but to be able to say we told you [electorate] that Ghana will change when Akufo-Addo comes to power and that is what you are witnessing but that is not the case”.
A Plus also criticised the President’s advisors and accused them of bringing embarrassment to Mr Akufo-Addo on countless occasions in relation to numerous issues, the recent one being the botched 17 December 2009.
“The people around him humiliate him every day and the last was the referendum fiasco. I told them that if they get a 40% turnout, out of 75%, I will shut down my Facebook account and never use the social media platform again. They lied to the President and they have done that over and over again”.
According to him, he has even shown magnanimity with the 30 per cent rating he has given the government.
A Plus, however, singled out the implementation of the Free Senior High School (SHS) programme, as “a good thing”.
He said he will always defend free education.