With the message of change and hope for Ghana, the flag bearer, accompanied by Mr Alan Kyeremanten, a leading member of the party, Mr Albert Kan-Dapaah, a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Afigya Sekyere West and former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament; the Greater Accra Chairman of the party, Mr Ishmael Ashietey; the National Women’s Organiser, Otiko Afisa Djaba, and a former Chief Executive of Accra, Mr Stanley Nii Adjiri Blankson, attracted hordes of people who ran alongside Nana Akufo-Addo’s convoy several kilometres to the campaign venue.

Long before the convoy arrived at Dansoman, scores of people had lined the streets awaiting his arrival.

The crowds along the routes started thickening when a pick-up vehicle with loudspeakers loudly blasting campaign songs of the NPP flag bearer was heard some distance away.

Dense human traffic

At certain points in time, human traffic impeded the smooth flow of the convoy, necessitating the flag bearer to stand in his vehicle to wave at the crowd.

An interesting observation was that all the people who had lined the roadside displayed one NPP paraphernalia or another, while they performed the change signal as the convoy moved along.

When the convoy made a brief stop at Shiabu, the old Dansoman Last Stop, hundreds of people had already gathered there, resulting in difficulty in accessing routes through the crowd.

A number of speakers took turns to address the crowd, but the excitement among the gathering was evident in the blowing of vuvuzelas, which drowned the sound from the loudspeakers, thereby giving journalists a difficult time listening to the messages by the various speakers.

Mr Kan-Dapaah, giving reasons why the government of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), under the leadership of President John Mahama, should be voted out of power, said when he was Chairman of the PAC, he saw at first-hand how the NDC and its officials in government had abused the national coffers.

Abuse of public purse

He said there had been so many instances of questionable expenditure that gave clear indications that some individuals had benefited.

But, strangely, he said, such people were still walking about freely and the law had not been allowed to take its course.

The time had come, he said, for Ghanaians to vote out the NDC and bring back the NPP to correct the wrongs that the NDC had committed.

When Mr Kyeremanten took his turn to address the people, he said Ablekuma West, being the home and stronghold of the NPP, needed no campaign by the party, but in view of the propaganda by the NDC, it was proper that some facts were made clear.

He said the Mahama-led administration was making boastful claims of constructing the Kwame Nkrumah and the Kasoa interchanges as though the NPP administration did nothing.

He listed six interchanges that were constructed by the Kufuor administration, adding that even with that quantum of work, life was far more bearable for the good people of Ghana.

Ghana at brink of destruction

The MP for Ablekuma West, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, said the government of the NDC was competent at only one thing — corruption — and said through its corrupt acts, the Mahama-led administration had led the nation to the brink of destruction.

She said voting for her as MP and for Nana Akufo-Addo to become the next President of Ghana was the only thing that could save the nation from destruction.

When the flag bearer finally took the stage, he asked the gathering what President Mahama had done for the country, to which the people answered loudly: “Nothing!”