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Regional Executive of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the Upper East Region is to embark on a peaceful demonstration on the streets of Bolgatanga on March 26, 2015, to protest against gross mismanagement of the economy and deep-rooted corruption in the Mahama-led administration.

At a news conference in Bolgatanga last week Wednesday, the executive said they wish to express on behalf of the good people of the North, their absolute disenchantment with the poor leadership of President John Mahama and his shocking indifference with regards to developmental issues affecting the North.

Addressed by the Regional Youth Organizer, Mr. Bashiru Ibrahim, flanked by the Regional Chairman, Mr. Adam Mahama and other executives, the NPP said in the run-up to the 2012 polls, the main message from President Mahama to the good people of the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions was that, Northerners should vote for him because he was also a northerner.

His message, the NPP noted, resonated with many voters of northern descent across the country, and thus, resulted in electoral advantage the NDC and President were enjoying today. The executive focused on seven key areas of concern to the people of three regions which were described as the poorest.

They included the SADA saga, job creation, education, health, leadership, ethnocentrism and the US$ 27 billion Mahama administration had borrowed.

On Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), the NPP recalled that Nana Akufo-Addo’s proposal, in the NPP’s 2008 campaign, for the establishment of the Northern Development Fund with a seed capital of US$ 1 billion.

However, the NPP said President Mahama, who was then the Vice Presidential candidate of the NDC, scoffed at the proposal on the claims that it was a deception and misplaced priority and that, if Nana Akufo-Addo could raise such funds, he should rather have used it to offset the debt owed by the Volta River Authority.

Mr. Bashiru Ibrahim said, upon realizing that the policy was indeed catching-up with a lot of Northern electorate, the NDC quickly made a gargantuan U-turn and proposed to establish what they called SADA, and promised to set aside a start-up capital of US$ 200 million and subsequently, inject US$ 1 million into the SADA account every year.
Unfortunately, money pumped into SADA could not be accounted for; neither could projects under the authority be traced.

Mr. Bashiru and his colleague executives hit hard at President Mahama and his administration for not creating jobs and to make matters worse, jobs created by the erstwhile Kufuor administration such as the National Youth Employment Programme, which was changed to Ghana Youth Employment and Entrepreneurial Agency (GYEEDA) and transmogrified into the creating, looting and sharing of taxpayers’ money with impunity.

Touching on education, the NPP accused the President and the NDC of short-changing northerners. According to them, feeding grants for second cycle institutions for one academic year had not been released while subventions for these institutions had also not been paid for two terms running.

The withdrawal of teacher trainee allowances and the seemingly collapse of the school feeding programme was also condemned by Mr. Bashiru Ibrahim, who titled the press statement: “President John Mahama’s betrayal of Northerners – the case of your own brother killing you slowly”.

They contended that though the NDC government under Mahama had made eradication of ‘schools under trees’ as one of its unprecedented achievements, there were still 22 Junior High Schools under trees in the Bawku West District of the Upper East Region.

The present crises facing the National Health Insurance Scheme and the blatant untruth the President told the nation in his state of the nation address about a supposed 120-bed capacity hospital nearing completion in Garu were major issues raised under the health sector. The NPP therefore demanded unqualified apology from the President.