Mr Boakye Kyeremateng Agyarko, a flagbearer aspirant of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) says he is running to be President because of his zeal to serve the nation.
He said this in his campaign message to the Party’s delegates, which was made available to the Ghana News Agency.
“A simple and straightforward answer to why I am running to be President is a zeal for the service to the country, the passion for Ghana, and the development of its people,” he said.
“It is said that there are two broad types of people who seek public office; those who want to be and those who want to do.
“Those who want to be, seek office merely to be in office for the enjoyment of the trappings and thrills of the office.”
He said for such office seekers, there were no solemn responsibilities and obligations to assume, no sacred duties to perform and a lack of an understanding that the office established a covenant with the electorate and the nation at large, which the covenant imposed on the office holder that sacred duty which could not be shed.
Mr Boakye Agyarko noted that there were those who sought public office as a platform; the means by which and through which the public good might be served.
He said such office seekers focused on the plans and programmes they sought to implement for the public good; saying “It is this class of office seekers that I consider myself as belonging to”.
“I have come to see and understand the Presidency as the most solemn and effective platform from which we can get this country moving again.” Mr Agyarko stated.
“It is the only effective and powerful platform available under the current constitutional arrangement for implementing the transformational agenda of our nation.”
He said after 66 years of independence, Ghanaians ought to seriously question themselves as to whether they were satisfied with where they were and what they had become.
“… I have travelled the world over during my days in banking and have seen many countries with much less than what we have been blessed and endowed with, do much more than we have done or are imagining.
“It is time for us as a nation to strive for higher heights.”
Mr Boakye Agyarko said “there comes a moment in time when a door opens to let the future in, that time is now and Ghanaians must seize it within both hands.
“Our failure in recent years has not been because our people have failed to rise to the occasion of meeting the challenges placed before them, but rather the failure of the political establishment and its leadership to place the challenges honestly and courageously before the
people of Ghana and to trust their willingness to do what really needs to be done. “
He said the country needed public officials who would stand up and tell the people of Ghana exactly what the true situation was and to summon the better angels in Ghanaians to get the country moving in the right direction.
“We cannot and must not continue to live as a divided people. We have often retreated behind the walls that divide us rather than being led beyond them. But whatever our differences, they
cannot measure up to the values we all hold together as Ghanaians.”
He said all political actors in Ghana must know that the constant engagement in shrill arguments amongst and against themselves was not what the people of Ghana were calling upon them to do.
He said they ought to know that they were really not each other’s opponent, but representatives of different points of view; adding that the real opponent that their people were calling upon them to fight and defeat was poverty.
He said any other fights they engaged in were mere shadow boxing and an unaffordable waste of the nation’s time and resources.
“The principal and only legitimate task I see for myself, my party and the government it forms is to bring the right and appropriate policies to bear upon our situation and circumstances so we can leap up from poverty into prosperity within our lifetime.” Mr Boakye Agyarko said.
“We cannot deny or run away from the creeping disillusionment, disappointment and frustration of our loyalists and foot soldiers.
“We cannot deny the foreboding sense of unfulfilled expectations of the nation at large.”
Mr Boakye Agyarko said the NPP Government had done very well in moving the nation forward than could have been the case under a National Democratic Congress (NDC) Government, but added that it (NPP) could have done better in view of the ” talents” in the Party.
He said some of the most challenging issues facing Ghanaians were unemployment particularly youth unemployment, under investment in infrastructure, fiscal crisis, managing political change and governance, water and sanitation, and the ravaging effect of climate change.
“Now, more than ever, we need to give the people of Ghana a good reason to continue to believe in the inspirational leadership possible only under the NPP,” Mr Boakye Agyarko stated.
He said Ghanaians had kept faith with the NPP over the years, and that the Party needed to reward their faith with good progress and good development.
“We need to raise the stakes of our present agenda, but we also need to change the pace.”
He said the aim must be to create an optimistic, self-sufficient and a prosperous nation.
Source: GNA