NPP TAKES TWIN-CITY BY STORM (PAGE 13)

THE New Patriotic Party (NPP) at the weekend took the twin city of Sekondi/Takoradi by storm as it held its 16th annual delegates conference in the city.
Over 1,500 delegates as well as ministers of state, some members of the Diplomatic Corp, the party’s overseas delegations from the United States of America, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada and Cote d’Ivoire were also present.
Others were a 57-member delegation from the Tertiary Education Students Confederation (TESCON) of the NPP which invaded the twin city to attend the two-day conference on the theme: “We are moving forward”.
Virtually the entire twin city was awash with all kinds of NPP paraphernalia, which were being sold by hawkers who had come from all over the country. Every available space in all the hotels in the twin city were booked.
There were traffic jams on most of the principal streets as a result of the increase in human and vehicular traffic, particularly in Takoradi.
The problem was aggravated when the NPP presidential aspirant, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his running mate, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, decided to ride through some of the principal streets in Takoradi on Friday.
At the Takoradi Central Market, known as Market Circle, the whole place came to s standstill when the convoy of the flag bearer and his running mate decided to go round the market to fraternise with the market women.
The market women brought the convoy to a standstill as they danced the kangaroo dance in front and along side the vehicle carrying Nana Akufo-Addo, who stood in his open top car to wave and acknowledge cheers from the people in the area, after addressing executives of the Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU).
It took the security personnel a hectic time to create an opening for the convoy to move.
From the Market Circle, Nana Akufo-Addo moved straight to the Holy Child College at Fijai where he addressed qualified certificate ‘A’ teachers and unqualified and untrained teachers who were undergoing training in basic education for their diploma awards known as “Top Ups”.
The situation at the college was not different as by the time the NPP flag bearer and his running mate arrived at the college, it had already been besieged by people from across the country.
On Saturday at the Sekondi College where the conference was held, people had started trooping to the college as early as six o’clock in the morning while others spent the night there.
When the Daily Graphic arrived at the college as early as 7.30a.m. the whole place had been decorated with NPP colours and party paraphernalia.
A giant size effigy of an elephant had been mounted and this attracted many party faithful and other observers.
The traditional and cultural activities were not left out as there were live cultural displays and traditional dancers to grace the occasion.
Addressing the gathering at the Holy Child College at Fijai on Friday evening, Nana Akufo-Addo stressed that without a good educational system "we should forget about development". He said “We have excellent teachers who can impart knowledge to the students”.
The NPP flag bearer said the government had doubled the budget allocation for education and increased salaries of teachers.
He said the government was already trying to modernise all the 38 teacher training colleges in the country.