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Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has ridiculed assertions being made by persons, both within and outside of the New Patriotic Party, that his age will prevent him from effectively governing this country when he is elected President of the Republic in 2017. �I am being told that I am too old to be President�, Nana Akufo-Addo said, to which the delegates at a packed Cultural Centre in Kumasi shouted, �No�. He recounted how �one man, two years older than me in Cote d�Ivoire� is putting to shame the work of the �so-called young man here in Ghana�, a reference to the stunning developmental record chalked by 72-year old President Alassane Ouattara in war-ravaged Cote d�Ivoire in some 2� years. �Give me the chance to do the same for Ghana and bring Ghana back onto the path of prosperity and a good life for all citizens. I am fit and strong for the task ahead,� Nana Addo reiterated. Nana Akufo-Addo made this known when he took his campaign for the leadership of the NPP to the Ashanti region on Friday, August 15. Akufo-Addo explained that the task of governing a country is serious business, adding the reduction of this all important duty to a matter of where one hails from, by President Mahama in the run up to the 2012 election, is not the way to go. �If you are experiencing hardships, will those problems be solved knowing that you hail from the same region as the President? The business of governing a country should not be reduced to where one comes from and must never be a tribal issue. We are one Ghana,� Nana Addo said. He reassured the delegates and Ghanaians that, when voted into office in 2017, the NPP, under his leadership, will ensure that Ghana industrialises, a process, he explained, will structurally transform the economy. Akufo-Addo explained that unless Ghana industrialises with the goal of adding significant value to our raw materials, �we cannot create the necessary numbers of high-paying jobs that will enhance the living standards of the mass of our people.� Raw material producing economies, according to Akufo-Addo do not create prosperity for the masses. �The way to that goal, the goal of ensuring access to prosperity, is value addition activities in a transformed and a diversified modern economy. In other words, the industrial development of our economy,� he said. Present at the function were Dr. Kwame Addo Kufuor, former Minister of Defence, former Minister of Interior and former MP for Manhyia; Hon. Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, Minority Leader in Parliament; Dr. Amoako Tuffuor, former National Co-ordinator of the School Feeding programme; Hon. Osei Assibey, former deputy Ashanti Regional Minister; Hon. Kwame Osei Prempeh, former deputy Attorney General, and former MP for Nsuta Kwamang; Dr. Nsiah Asare, former director of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital; Stephen Ntim, former NPP National 1st Vice Chairman; Maxwell Kofi Jumah, former Mayor of Kumasi and former MP for Asokwa; F.F. Antoh, NPP National 3rd Vice Chairman, and former Ashanti Regional NPP Chairman; Hon. Elizabeth Agyemang, Chair of the caucus of NPP MPs from the Ashanti Region and MP for Oforikrom; all 47 NPP constituency chairmen; some former District Chief Executives of the party in the region; and 30 odd NPP Members of Parliament.