SAMMY AWUKU MUST STOP DECIEVING THE YOUTH- STUDENTS FOR MAHAMA

STUDENTS FOR MAHAMA, an independent mass movement of students across the country rallying support for the second term bid of PresidentMahama is highly scandalized by the content of a misguided press issue authored by Sammy Awuku under the aegis of the NPP Youth Wing and reported severally in the media.

Following from comments made by the Chairman of the 2016 Campaign Team of Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo, Mr. Peter McManu, which seemed to suggest that the NPP was ready to usurp the Electoral Commission’s mandate and declare the 2016 Election Result in its quest for power, one would have thought that the Youth Wing would use Monday’s press conference to reprimand those utterances and disassociate themselves from those comments. Rather, they chose to attack President Mahama and call him names all in a bid to create ill-feeling for him amongst the Youth of this country.

We find such desperate attempts to downplay the achievements of President Mahama especially in the area of job creation for the youth by providing misrepresented facts as classical antics of opposition politicking; providing disingenuous facts calculated at annexing power at all cost.

While we admit that NOT ALL YOUTH in Ghana have been gainfully employed through direct interventions by President Mahama, we cannot overlook the significant strides that we have made as a country in terms of creating jobs for the youth under his watch. Any attempt therefore to paint the picture that NOTHING has been done must not be countenanced by well meaning Ghanaians who are passionate to see truth in our body politics; at least not in the face of staggering evidence.

For the records, the Mahama government has been very transparent on the employment opportunities provided as a result of direct and indirect interventions. Indeed, a release by the Ministry of Communication on April 25, 2016 detailed that, over 310,000 jobs have been made available to the youth between 2013-2015 alone. Still over 400,000 youths with varying professional skills have been engaged either directly or indirectly as a result of infrastructural expansion being undertaken by this government. Some 154,000 opportunities are still going to be created in 2016 after several employment modules and industrial facilities have been brought on stream. These figures are even without employment avenues and figures arising out of investment in COTVET, YES, critical manufacturing industry etc.

Popularly, the narrative by the NPP and its youth leader is that, unemployment rate under President Mahama has been the worst this country has ever seen. A better engagement with the facts of recent history will tell us that indeed this is a departure from the truth. Statistics from the Ghana Statistical Service reported by www.tradingeconomics.com indicates that Ghana has averaged an unemployment rate of 8.86% since 2001 until 2010 when it dropped to 5.96% under President Mills before further dropping to an all-time-low of 5.20% in 2013 under President Mahama. In fact, even under these admittedly hard times, it is projected to hit only 8.60% in 2016 should everything go wrong for this government, a figure which is still 0.26% better than the supposedly hay days under the NPP. How can a President under whose auspices we have achieved the lowest unemployment rate be insensitive towards the unemployment issues of the youth?

Finally, we are calling on all Ghanaians, especially the student community and the Youth, to be on the lookout for many of these vile propaganda messages and issues which the NPP Youth Wing especially are going to come up with to create disaffection for H.E John Dramani Mahama and deceive unsuspecting electorates. Such issue like the ones raised by Sammy Awuku and his NPP must be subjected to critical historical and facts-based analysis to ascertain its merit.

Communications and Media Directorate, STUDENTS FOR MAHAMA