Ladies and gentlemen of the media, we have invited you here to share with you some concrete reasons why the 2012 election is a make or break for the future of the young people of northern Ghana. As I can see, many of you media people gathered here are in our generation, and together, we need to raise the necessary questions on the issues that affect us as northern youth. Ladies and gentlemen of the media, as we sit now, there are only three more months left for 2011 to come to an end. 2011 was dubbed ‘Action Year’ by President John Atta Mills. Now ask yourselves, what positive action have you seen done in any of the three regions this year? Where is the action in your district or municipal area? Who is feeling the action in your constituency? What action has been taken to give jobs to the youth in your community? How has the so-called action promised by President Mills impacted on your life, you the northern individual? The only action we can see are of big buildings springing up, being built by government appointees. They are feeling the action from the $10 billion worth of loans approved by Parliament in less than three years of the third NDC government and the second return of President Mills. It is not that we have not felt any action because there is no money for action. Far from that. No government, since the First Republic has had the kind of resources that President John Mills and Vice President John Mahama have had. But, because of the selfish and unpatriotic corruption of the so-called Greedy Bastards, because of the incompetence of the government, our cash is being blown and wasted nyafo-nyafo. The double double chop-chop is what is denying the youth of Ghana, the youth of the North, the opportunity to get a job. The NDC says they are Social Democrats and believe in equal distribution of resources. Now, let us examine their actions as against their talk. Just imagine for a moment, ladies and gentlemen, if this $10 billion was shared equally among Ghanaians. Every region would have had $1 billion. The three regions of the North alone would have had $3 billion. Every district in Ghana would have had $60 million. Every constituency, I mean your constituency, would have had $43 million. Now, can you picture how well your life would have changed if this government had chosen to use your money, our money, responsibly? Ghana is not poor, it is the bad and corrupt governance of the NDC that is keeping us poor and making us poorer. Don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, this is not 3 years of NDC, this is 22 years of (P)NDC. It is the same party, the same people and the same incompetent, corrupt, uncaring, greedy and hypocritical group. The only action President Mills has taken has been against the Founder of his party. And, how has that benefited you and I? How has that helped you and I to get a job; a decent job with a decent pay? For the past three years, the youth of the North have been forced to do three years of wait-and-see. We have waited for nearly three years for the jobs that the NDC promised. We have been hungry for three years. We have watched how we suffer and those who are in power or close to power suddenly becoming rich men with big cars and putting up big mansions. As I said earlier, we have three months to the end of the year. After that is 2012, election year. We all know what the NDC has in mind. After ignoring us for 3 years of their 4-year mandate, they are going to come to you to bribe you. They will bring you gifts, they will bring you crumbs from the table that they have been feasting for 3 years without you. They will bring you sugar, rice, and some small change. And because they take us for fools they think that you will be happy and go back to the polling booth and vote for them to make you suffer for another 3 years and bribe you in the final year. My office has a small advice for you. Please, when they come in the last hour bearing gifts, do take them. And show them where the power lies. Don't let them fool you. We have solid information that the 2012 budget which would be read in two months time will contain false and deceptive allocations for SADA. We are told that they will give as much as $200 million for SADA. Don't be fooled by that. They know they have no intention to spend even $20 million on SADA next year. But they will put it in as a propaganda budget to let you think that they are finally fulfilling their promise. It is the same thing that they are doing to the Western Region, letting them think that they have $3 billion for them. I don't have to tell you that this is the stock in trade of the NDC. The party of propaganda, the party of lies, the party of hypocrisy, the party of deceit. When Nana Akufo-Addo and the NPP brought a very comprehensive programme to transform the North. Akufo-Addo's Northern Development Authority was the blueprint to do what no previous government had done before – to look at the North not as a land of poverty and pity, but land with the potential for prosperity and plenty. But, the NDC, which had been in office for 19 years and did nothing to transform the circumstances of the North, saw the propaganda advantage and stealing our programme and using it to deceive the people of the North. Per the NDC manifesto, by now SADA should have had at least $400 million. But what do we have? It took over a year to pass the SADA law. It has taken them nearly 3 years to set up the secretariat! If it takes this long to set up the secretariat then it will take 300 years for them to develop the North! We need to start asking ourselves, where is the promised better Ghana? Where is the much talk about SADA? Where is the one time premium health insurance? Prof. Mills cut the sod for a modern sports stadium in Bolgatanga in 2009, where is the sports stadium? Where is the Fufulso Road that Vice President John Mahama promised when he was looking for your vote? The only action we have seen is of President Mills cutting sods for projects they have not budgeted for and commissioning secondary school dining halls. Ladies and gentlemen, by the time we finish this press conference, you will hear all sorts of vituperations from young people like us in the NDC. They are going to sing the usual songs – the NDC is only three years in Government, why didn't the NPP do all what we are asking them to do and so on and so forth. Even before they come up with such feeble excuses, I have two important issues for them to reflect on: 1. The usual rhetoric that the NDC has only been in government for only three years and therefore we should give them more years to fulfill their promises can not wash in 2012. The reason is that Prof. Mills and John Mahama and more than 50% of their cabinet are not new to governance in this country. Having served as vice president and ministers of state in previous NDC governments, these people knew exactly what they were saying when they made those promises in 2008. Thus the argument that everybody gets eight years is not for my generation. Out of the 54 years of Ghana's independence, by 2012, the NDC alone would have spent nearly 24 of those years ruling Ghana – six terms more than any other government in the history of Ghana. The Mills/Mahama administration has woefully failed to make use of their previous experience in government to accelerate the development of Ghana, not even after they inherited a vastly expanded economy through the hard and competent efforts of President John Kufuor and the NPP. 2. The best lessons we can pick is from the football world. No coach keeps an incompetent player in the field for full 90 minutes, with the simple excuse that the player needs both first and second half to be able to play well, while keeping one of his best strikers on the bench. My generation can not afford to keep Nana Akufo-Addo on the bench and allow the Mills/ Mahama administration to continue to make hardship double double for us. No way! Ladies and gentlemen, I have stated that we can not afford to keep Nana Addo on the bench and allow Mills and his team B players to be on the field for the second half. Let me explain why my generation can not afford that. In a recent first ever Liberty Lecture organised by the Danquah Institute, Nana Addo used the occasion to provide us an insight into his vision for Ghana. He outlined so many important policy directions that should excite us the youth. But what caught my interest most is his vision on education and I have a reason for that. Explaining why education will be a top priority in his administration, Nana Addo stated and I quote “What the evidence from history and the experience of many countries have shown is that it is not natural resources that build nations. It is people who build nations. It is the people of Ghana, Ghanaians like you and I, and especially the youth of today, who are going to build Ghana.” He then proceeded to give us truly heartbreaking statistics that showed that our generation is heading for disaster if the status quo is maintained. To get to the point that I want to make, permit me to repeat some of those statistics here: • Thousands of JSS students drop out of the education system each year because they cannot afford tuition fees to move on to Senior High School. • Too many of our children, nearly a quarter of a million each year, graduate from our Senior High Schools without access to our universities or the necessary skills for the job market. • Nearly 300,000 JHS/SHS students fail final exam • 30% of adults in urban areas are illiterate (GLSS5). • 60% adults in rural areas are illiterate (GLSS5). • 90% of students at the University of Ghana came from private primary schools • Only 10% of students coming from small town/villages in Ghana. • Too many university graduates without jobs. Ladies and gentlemen, I repeat these statistics here for a purpose. Nana Addo is a president in waiting. So he looked at the issues from a national context. We need to ask ourselves what does the above statistics mean to those of us in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions? I have taken the pains to answer that question and here is what it all mean for you and I. In the same survey (GLSS5), the proportion of adults who have been to school in the northern, Upper East and Upper West regions were 28%, 30.9% and 29.9% respectively. School attendance rate were reported as 54.7% for Northern region, 61.2% for Upper East and 64.1% for Upper West region. In terms of adult literacy, while in Accra, 80% of adults were reported to be literate, only 22% of adults in rural savannah were reported to be literate. So if you ever thought the national statistics was heartbreaking, then I tell you that the situation here in the north is of calamitous proportions. Ladies and gentlemen, in the face of this appalling statistics being presided over by a vision-less NDC government, how can we reject Nana Akufo-Addo's vision of an educated Ghanaian society. Look around you, those doing well are usually those who had the opportunity to be educated well. The NDC deliberately saw to the collapse of our education because they want to keep us ignorant and continue to fall for their propaganda and lies. We need Akufo-Addo to free our people from poverty, misery and ignorance. He has told us that in his policy for education, the teaching profession will be restored to the status it once enjoyed and made an attractive career choice. He has repeatedly told us of his commitment to making post-JSS education free and making the secondary school level the first point of exit, both within the first four years of his presidency. Ladies and gentlemen, the alternative to such a crystal clear vision in the governance of our country is that “if the government buys a goat, say it is a beautiful cow and if the goat is black, say it is white”. That is the alternative vision choice we have in 2012. The School Feeding programme led to enrollment in certain schools in the North doubling. The NDC has just announced that the School Feeding programme will not be continued. This is certainly a government that does not care for the North. Mills never cared for you. He only cared for your vote. Show him in 2012 that you care about your future and vote the incompetent and uncaring NDC out. Over the years, we have remained loyal to the NDC when it comes to voting. In fact, it has come to the point where the NDC government can afford to take us for granted. Let us grant ourselves the opportunity to stop the NDC from taking us for granted. Let us vote for our own opportunities and aspirations. Let us vote for education, skills and jobs. Let us allow Nana Akufo-Addo to put Ghana back to work. I call on the youth of Ghana, and in particular, those of my brothers and sisters here in the north to use 2012 election to shape our future by voting massively for Nana Akufo-Addo. If not for anything, for his vision, for our education, our skills development and jobs and the transformation of the North. It must be done and it shall be done, Insha Allah, under Nana Akufo-Addo. Thank you for coming.