The NDC vice presidential candidate, Mr. John Mahama begins a ten-day campaign tour of the three northern regions on Friday. He will be leading a second team of party faithfuls and strategists in an effort to galvanise votes for the party in the December elections. The presidential candidate of the party Prof. Mills will also lead another team to the Western Region. Ahead of the tour, Mr. Mahama has been visiting a number of media houses to “build new friendships and renew existing ones”. At Joy FM he told Matilda Asante the campaign will focus on agriculture since that is the main stay of the people. He said the three regions were the foremost in terms of agricultural production and expressed regret that over the years the regions’ agric potential had collapsed. That situation he said had led to a worrying exodus of the youth from the area to south. Mr. Mahama who is also the Member of Parliament for Bole/Bamboi stressed the need for Ghana’s development to be evenly spread across the country. “Happily under President Kufuor’s government he set up the Northern Development Fund that is supposed to help to address some of the issues of imbalance in development between the north and the south”, he noted. For him the north is in prime position for agro industry and that that will be emphasised during the tour. He said there will not be major rallies but mini ones to interact with the people and understand their problems. On his attraction to floating voters he said he always tried to remain open minded, honest and objective without being overly partisan in all his dealings in politics. Commenting on the proposed award for Prof. Mills, Mr. Mahama said it will not give the professor any advantage in the December elections. He was reacting to concerns by sections of supporters of the ruling New Patriotic Party that the award will give the opposition leader an undue advantage by giving him national recognition. But the NDC vice presidential candidate says the award will not change anything. Story by Malik Abass Daabu