Reject NDC, NPP — PPP running mate tells voters
The Progressive People’s Party (PPP) has unveiled a 47-year-old women’s advocate, Ms Brigitte Akosua Koshie Dzogbenuku, as the running mate of the presidential candidate of the party, Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, for the 2016 general election.
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Accepting her nomination at the party’s headquarters in Accra Thursday, Ms Dzogbenuku declared that it was time to reject both the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
“We have tried both the NDC and the NPP...Today we are caught between a rock and a hard place, between the devil and the deep blue sea. Is it our choice to remain swinging between these two self-interest parties, and getting the same ‘backward’ results?’’ she asked.
Ms Dzogbenuku made it clear that the PPP represented a change from the failures of previous governments.
“Indeed, l have contributed to bring the two parties to power........ We have tried both but l have chosen the 10-point agenda of the PPP,” she explained
According to the former beauty queen and keen grassroot mobiliser, “Ghana can work again without high levels of corruption, wastefulness, selfishness and misappropriation of the taxpayer’s money”.
She said Ghana had done better in the past and could do that again and more with the right kind of leadership.
It was her contention that it was the PPP, under the leadership of Dr Nduom, that could provide the right kind of incorruptible and selfless leadership to lift the people from the doldrums.
‘Stand up and be counted’
She, therefore, appealed to Ghanaians who wanted a change in the way things were being done to stand up and be counted, not only by voting but also being heard to vote for the PPP.
Ms Dzogbenuku said as a Ghanaian, she had nowhere else to live but here and was desirous of making life here as comfortable as possible.
Indiscipline and corruption
On indiscipline and corruption, she said people and even leaders who ought to know better were indisciplined, acted with impunity and were so totally corrupted by the largesse of power, adding “For now, anything goes. How did our dear Ghana get here?”
She stated that she was a Ghanaian who also recognised the desire of women to contribute to the commercial and economic activities of the country because they produced competitive local products.
“Yet, due to very little or practically no encouragement in market empowerment for the local entrepreneur, they are reduced to subsistence activities.
“For example, the women at Ve-Gbodome in the Volta Region who produced some of the highest grades of edible palm oil have for years marketed it only in their local markets, with little or no income accruing to them,” she lamented.
Dr Nduom
Unveiling his running mate, Dr Nduom said the party stood for inclusiveness and togetherness and that when voted into power, it would harness all the manpower of the country, irrespective of party or ethnic affiliation.
He said other governments had done their best and used their best men to achieve the present level of development but that was not enough, since there was a lot to be done to pull the country out of the economic doldrums, adding that it could be done when there was a change in the way things were done.
He observed that the country was endowed with so many resources but content with very little, noting that that would never happen under a PPP administration which would bring nothing but the best in Ghanaians.
He said that was because the PPP was a party of pragmatism because while previous governments were only capable of promising, the PPP believed in action.
Dignitaries
The unveiling of the running mate attracted a number of PPP stalwarts and dignitaries, including Ms Eva Lokko, the 2012 running mate of Dr Nduom and now parliamentary candidate of the party for Klottey Korle; Mr Mike Eghan Snr, a member of the Council of Elders of the party; Mrs Yvonne Nduom, the wife of the flag bearer; Mr Ladi Nylander, a founder member of the PPP; the National Chairman, Nii Allotey Brew-Hammond and the Adabraka Atukpai Manye, Naa Kokor Aadzieoye.
Brief profile
Born at Ve-Koloenu, a small farming community in the Afadjato South District in the Volta Region, in 1969, Ms Dzogbenuku was crowned the 1991 Miss Ghana and is currently the Executive Director of Mentoring Women Ghana (MWG), a non-governmental organisation.
She was also part of the group, “Clean Ghana”, which, in 2014, sought to enlist official support from local government offices to help get refuse off the streets of Ghana.
Women’s Leadership Award
She won the Fortune/Goldman Sachs Women’s Leadership Award in 2008.
Prior to her work at MWG, she was the General Manager of the Aviation Social Centre, a fitness and recreational centre in Accra, where she introduced various innovative fitness programmes and events into this niche industry in Ghana.
In 2011, she founded a recreational facilities management company, Helm Management Services. In that role, she managed the Barclays Bank Club House for four years until September 2015.
She also established the Ve Flavour Industries, an edible palm oil production and packaging for profit company that works with women in the Volta Region, contributing to their socio-economic empowerment.
She gives presentations on etiquette and manners and also exercise and wellness to various groups and organisations, with emphasis on the youth, and is a coach for the Ghanaian Women’s Social Leadership Programme, a Muheres Por Africa (Women for Africa) which runs through New York University's, Wagner Institute.
She is also a certified empowerment trainer and also serves on the board of Enactus, Ghana.