STATEMENT BY NANA AKUFO-ADDO AFTER DECLARATION OF VICTORY IN NPP PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY ON 18TH OCTOBER, 2014 AT THE EFUA SUTHERLAND CHILDREN’S PARK, ACCRA.

This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.

I thank the Lord Almighty for his continuing blessings on our beloved Ghana, the NPP and myself.

I thank, from the bottom of my heart, the thousands and thousands of NPP members – polling station executives, electoral area co-ordinators, constituency executives, regional executives, National Council and National Executive Committee members, National Council of Elders, Members of Parliament, past national officers, founding members and ordinary members and youth of the party – for this overwhelming show of support. I am profoundly grateful and truly humbled by the massive confidence you have reposed in me. You have put an enormous responsibility on my modest shoulders, but I want to assure you that I shall do everything humanly possible, under the guidance of Almighty God, to justify your confidence.

I congratulate my opponents, Alan Kwadwo Kyerematen and Hon. Francis Addai-Nimo, for their competition, and appreciate the gracious call that Alan Kyerematen made to me earlier this evening about my victory. I congratulate also those who did not make the shortlist of five and those who did, but dropped out of the race to support me, my good friends, Hon. Joe Ghartey and Hon. Kofi Osei-Ameyaw. We will all co-operate and work together to advance the cause of the NPP and Mother Ghana. That is what the people of Ghana and the membership of the NPP expect of us.

I am grateful to those in the party, from the national to the polling station level, who were responsible for the organisation of this successful election, and to the members of the Electoral Commission, who supervised it. My thanks also to the Police Force for their service.

I thank warmly all those who supported my candidature and participated in my campaign. This historic result could not have been achieved without your hard work and enthusiasm.

I acknowledge with thanks the extensive coverage given to the conduct of the campaign by the media.

My final thanks goes to my beautiful lady, my wife Rebecca, my children and family for their constant support and encouragement. Without them, I cannot go forth.

Tonight’s declaration brings to an end the process of internal reorganisation of our party. We have now to gird up our loins, put ourselves together and get ready to face the big battle of 2016. We, in the NPP, have a sacred, two-fold duty. We must rid our country, through the peace of the ballot box, of this incompetent NDC government of John Dramani Mahama, and relieve the Ghanaian people of the unjustifiable hardships and difficulties they are encountering. We are then to form a government for Ghana where we will reverse the decline of our nation, do the work of the Ghanaian people with integrity and bring about their rapid progress and prosperity.

We have the men and women who can do it. We can fulfil, in our generation, the dreams and ambitions of our founding fathers to build a free, prosperous, modern African nation, governed on the principles of democratic accountability, the rule of law and social justice. Let us be up and doing.

God bless Ghana. God bless the NPP. God bless Mother Africa.

Thank you.