Dr. Omane Boamah, Deputy Campaign Coordinator for the John Mahama 2012 Campaign, has alleged that some NPP Members of Parliament applied to the government to include schools in their constituencies in the Better Ghana ICT project. Though he would not disclose the names of the MPs, he told Evans Mensah on Joy FM’s Top Story that students from those areas benefited from the project and said it was incongruous that NPP presidential candidate Nana Akufo-Addo had spoken out against the project. Addressing students at the University of Cape Coast, Nana Akufo-Addo indicated that the project could best be described as one laptop per NDC supporter. “We have been told about thousands of laptops being distributed all over Ghana. It turns out that boys’ names are found to be in the girls schools list whilst one institution has come out to say that none of the names against their school list belong to any enrolled student. On the university campuses at least, it would appear the distribution of the laptops has its proper name- one laptop per NDC supporter,” Nana Addo stated. But Boamah, speaking on Joy FM, said Akufo-Addo’s comments were borne out of his desperation to win power “at all costs.” Given that some of the beneficiaries are coming from areas with NPP MPs, he asked whether Nana Addo would equally accuse those MPs of engaging in political trickery or vote buying. “If he finds out that some of these MPs are even from his own party, is he going to withdraw his statement and apologize not just to government but to his own MPs and also to the students, the schools that have benefited from these laptops?” He maintained that government is committed to bridging the digital divide. Boamah stated that some inmates at the Borstal Institute for Juveniles, now the Senior Correctional Centre under the Ghana Prisons Service, also benefited from the move, and he asked if Nana Addo would describe the inmates as NDC supporters. “We should raise the political discourse higher than the level Nana Addo is taking this political discourse. It begegun with the all-die-be-die. It is not helping this country…we should be discussing how well we can bridge the digital divide and not defacing the political discourse like he is doing.” Pentecost University PRO Emmanuel Kyei had challenged government’s claim that students of his school had benefited from the project, but Boamah explained there was a mistake with the published list of recipients. This school’s name, he said, had been included in place of the Presbyterian University. According to a release by the Ministry of Information, he said, the anomaly has already been fixed, adding that the PRO’s failure to double check the new list before publicly commenting on it is evidence of Nana Addo’s desperation. He warned that Nana Addo’s “unquenchable thirst for power” could lower the bar for political discourse in Ghana. However, Madam Elizabeth Ohene, a former Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education under the NPP regime, claimed that Nana Addo’s comment on the laptops was based on what the party was told by the students themselves. Asked if the students’ reports were reliable, she replied, “what kind of evidence do you want apart from the students who are on campus with those who are being given the laptops, what other evidence do you want?” She maintained that all students should be computer literate but that state money should not be used to buy laptops supporters of a particular party.