A group calling itself Young People of Cape Coast has reacted to President Nana Akufo-Addo’s apology to indigenes after claiming he never promised to build a harbour in the town in the run-up to the 2020 elections.
Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen Show Thursday, the leader of the group, Abeiku Adams, said the President’s gaffe cannot be described as a mistake but a deliberate attempt to avoid developmental works in the Central Region.
“What the President is doing is only a refusal to develop our area and complete abandoned projects in the Central Region. I think the statement by the President was intentional and not a mistake and so we can never agree,” he said.
He stated the people of Cape Coast will not accept the apology because the platform was not appropriate.
“He made the statement in Cape Coast and so we expect him to come back to Cape Coast and apologise and not sit in Accra and say he made a mistake, we are citizens and so he should treat us with respect because we will not listen to it,” he added.
He, therefore, urged the President to come to Cape Coast and sit down with chiefs and elders of Cape Coast and renegotiate on whether to do a full-blown seaport or a fishing harbour.
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“We are very reasonable people. President and his people should come to and think about the development of Cape Coast,” he demanded.
The president, while on his two-day tour of the Central Region, told Cape Coast-based Eagle FM on Monday, October 18, that a decision to build a harbour in Cape Coast was never a part of the list of promises tabled before him for his second term.
“The commitment was never to a harbour; it was to a landing site,” he said. “I never said I was going to build a harbour in Cape Coast. I said I was going to build a landing site like what I’ve done in these six other places in the Central Region. Cape Coast will also have its landing site, and the construction of that will start next year,” he said.
Justifying his statement, President Akufo-Addo referenced Page 88 of the New Patriotic Party’s 2020 Manifesto, dubbed Leadership of Service: Protecting our Progress, Transforming Ghana for All.
But speaking on Peace FM, Wednesday, October 21, 2021, he said presidents are humans and not supermen; because they make mistakes.