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To all those claiming that the flag bearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, had not right to organize his version of the state of the nation address, the editor of the Punch Newspaper, Baby Ansaba says you should all shut up because it was in the right direction that the NPP flag bearer delivered the address from an opposition’s perspective.

Last week, President John Dramani Mahama performed his statutory obligation by presenting to Parliament the State of the Nation Address. But, according to almost all the opposition parties, the president failed to paint the true picture of the state of the nation to parliament.

The NPP’s leader, Nana Addo, on Monday delivered what he felt was the true state of the nation to Ghanaians.

He touched on corruption, education, health, creative industry, taxation, import and export, sports, agriculture, industry, infrastructure, good governance, natural resource governance and several others.

In the educational sector for instance, he said, President Mahama who promised to establish 200 senior high schools by the end of his tenure has managed to commission only four with just about nine months to the end of his term.

Meaning the president has failed in his promise. He also accused the government of, among others, excessive borrowing, overpricing of government projects and contracts and failure to introduce a single social intervention programme since they took office in 2009.

Soon after Nana Addo’s address, some commentators took to social media to claim that the NPP flag bearer did not have the right to organize such address because he is not the president of the republic.

But Baby Ansaba has some words for Nana Addo’s critics.

Speaking on Top Fm’s morning show hosted by Ekourba Gyasi, on Tuesday, the Editor of the Punch Newspaper, who is known in real life as Ebenezer Ato Sam, and has been an ardent critic of Nana Addo and the NPP in recent years congratulated the NPP leader for articulating perfectly the issues bordering many Ghanaians in his address.

He told Ekourba that Nana Addo, just as any Ghanaian, has every right to use any procedure to voice out his concerns about how the country is being governed so long as the procedure remains in the full remit of the law.

He added “Nana Addo is a potential president likelwise, the NPP is a potential government and so they will need to tell Ghanaians that they really know the condition or state of the nation and that is what they are doing although I believe they will win after 2022.”

“Ghanaians are suffering I must be frank with you and some of them may not have been happy with the President’s State of the Nation Address and so it was in the right direction that Nana Addo organized his address,” he told Ekourba.

Baby added that the trend where opposition parties organize their version of the state of the nation address after the president’s delivery was started by the late President John Evans Atta Mills.

This he said had deepened democracy in Ghana and must be continued, he said.

Ken Kuranchie, Managing Editor for the Daily Searchlight newspaper who was also on the programme said Nana Addo really demonstrated to the country that he knows and understands the real state of the nation.

He said president Mahama failed to present to Parliament what Ghanaians expected of him but Nana Addo has done that through his presentation.