The Editor of the Fourth Estate, Manasseh Azure Awuni, says President Akufo-Addo has become the new definition of hopelessness in the country.
Manasseh Azure believes that Ghanaians are extremely dissapointed in the government of the day because of the hope and trust they had in the NPP government.
According to him the State of the Nation’s Address by Nana Addo is underwhelming ,he made this revelation on the UpFront on Thursday,31 2022.
“If any State of the Nation Address meets my expectations, it isn’t what Mr. Akufo-Addo delivered. Because he has come to represent hopelessness in my view. I used to be one of those who cheered him most whenever he wanted to speak, but these days, I struggle to tolerate him when he’s speaking.
To put it in a better way, I find it difficult to listen to the President when he speaks. Because some of the things he said he will do and the things that gave some of us hope are things that we have not seen. It keeps getting worse”, he explained that to the host, Raymond Acquah.
In his view concerning the current state of the Ghanaian youth, He said , many young people would not shy away from packing out of the country if an opportunity is presented to them.
Mr Azure emphasised that the system has favored some politicians in Ghana who end up wooing young people with enticing promises, only to fail them when they win power this continue process has made young people in Ghana lost hope in ‘hard work’.
But former Deputy Minister of Information, Pius Enam Hadzide, thinks otherwise.
Contributing to discussions on ‘The State of the Ghanaian Youth’ on Upfront, he stated that, since 2017 when the NPP won power, it has been the best time to be a youth in Ghana.
In justifying his claims, he stated that, “the challenge and the history has been that, there were large numbers of Ghanaian youth who dropped along the line not because of the lack of mental capacity or interest in education, but just because of the financial barrier that payment of secondary school fees presented”.
The current boss of the National Youth Authority (NYA), argued that government’s Free SHS policy has created the opportunity for many young people to access education which will enable them excel in the future.
In his opinion, this will have a positive generational impact on them, as well as the fortunes of the country at large. Touting the impact of the policy, he remarked that “Through Free SHS, now over 1.2 million Ghanaian young persons are in the classroom. A large number of them would have stayed behind. The first year, the inaugural year of the Free SHS, between 2016 and 2017 in nominal terms [saw] over 48,000 people, almost 50,000”.
