The National Communications Officer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has issued a terse warning to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government not to belittle the mounting anger of Ghanaian youth against the incompetence of the administration.
The youth of Ghana, he said, have clearly long lost faith in President Akufo-Addo and can no longer take his empty rhetoric.
According to him, Ghanaians, in general, can no longer identify with the President and his Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia who continue to mismanage the economy and abuse the public purse with reckless abandon.
“They have no trust for leaders who continue to lie to them and have shown no genuine desire to address their worsening living conditions. This is the hard truth that the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government must come to terms with.”
Sammy Gyamfi was responding to claims by the NPP that the NDC orchestrated the booing of President Akufo-Addo at the Global Citizens Concert when he staged an appearance to deliver a keynote address.
Videos of the said incident in which the charged-up crowd, predominantly made up of young people, are seen hooting at the President had gone viral.
Events of that day, he said, were unprecedented, as no sitting Ghanaian President, at least under the Fourth Republic, has ever been subjected to such ridicule and embarrassment.
According to him, the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government and their handlers should come to terms with the reality of the difficult times Ghanaians are living in and that the action of the youth reflects an overwhelming vote of no confidence in their crass misgovernance and mishandling of the affairs of the nation.
He said, “Sadly but unsurprisingly, we have become aware of some irresponsible and ludicrous attempts by NPP hirelings and lickspittles to blame the booing of President Akufo-Addo at the said event on the NDC.”
“This latest attempt by the NPP to blame the NDC for the monumental embarrassment that befell President Akufo-Addo at the Global Citizen musical concert is not only insulting to the sensibilities of Ghanaians but also underscores the fact that this government and their hired apologists are simply oblivious of our present reality or perhaps they are underestimating the anger of the Ghanaian people.”
‘A hungry man is an angry man,’ it is often said, but this plain truth is lost on the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government. The frustrations expressed by the youth on that fateful day perfectly reflect the excruciating and frustrating times Ghanaians presently find themselves,” he said.
According to Sammy Gyamfi, the NPP must acknowledge the daily struggles of the youth and the ordeal of the Ghanaian people to find ways to survive at a time that inflation is 33.9% with prices of goods and services skyrocketing every day.
The youth, he said, expressed in the clearest terms the daily struggles of the vast majority of Ghanaians who wake up every day with no hope of where their next meal is going to come from.
“Those young people simply gave voice to our daily struggles with unbearable prices of fuel at the pumps, high cost of living in the country.”
“Today, our economy lies in tatters having been plunged into an unsustainable public debt through reckless spending and excessive borrowing most of which have been spent on consumption by the Akufo-Addo/Bawumia government.” “Unemployment rate continues to rise and currently stands at 13.4%, the highest in nearly thirty years, despite championing lofty and grandiose rhetoric such as NABCO, YouStart, One District, One Factory, among others.”
According to him, the fact that Ghana has a very youthful population, adding up to nearly six million people according to the 2020 Population and Housing Census, should dawn on President Akufo-Addo that anything short of prioritizing an agenda to create sustainable and meaningful jobs will not be countenanced by the young people of this country.