Last night the president, His Excellency John Dramani Mahama delivered his first nationwide broadcast after ascending to the high office of the land following the death of President John Evans Atta-Mills.In his statement, the president alluded to the fact that "when it comes to the practice of peace and unity we Ghanaians have always been exemplary," Ghana is not immune to ethnic conflicts as records will show. Therefore, the PPP wishes to place on record that we are fully in support of any steps taken to ensure that the general resolution of Ghanaians to maintain the unity and peace demonstrated following the sudden departure our late president is sustained. Those practical steps were absent in the president's address.The PPP wishes to state that in other jurisdictions, a presidential address attracts an equal opportunity for other political parties and key stakeholders to share their views on the issues raised and prescribe concrete solutions to the problems at stake. In a country where the state owned media provides extensive coverage to government’s programmes and activities and give unfair advantage to the party in power against other political parties, this presents a barrier to unity. The anomaly needs to be corrected to sustain the unity currently prevailing.Also key in promoting unity is to address the issue of abuse of incumbency. We can find that there are huge billboards of His Excellency John Mahama and former president Prof. Atta-Mills ostensibly put up to promote and give advantage to the candidacy of the former in the 2012 elections. Who is paying for these billboards? Is it at the expense of the tax payer? Will these ensure unity in Ghana when one party gets undue advantage for being in government?We wished that the president addressed the issue of lack of transparency and broader consultation in decision making. A case in point is the NDC's government white paper issued on the report of the Constitutional Review Commission. The NDC seeks through that white paper to concentrate more power in the hands of the president in the selection or election of DCE's against the collective wishes of Ghanaians to have their DCE's elected directly without any executive interference. Putting big powers in the hands of the President will not promote unity in any practical sense.One other way of maintaining the unity in Ghana is to ensure inclusiveness. There is too much discrimination due to unnecessary partisanship in the award of state contracts, appointments into key public service positions and the distribution of national resources. These are the things that militate against the peace and unity in Ghana and the president should make a personal commitment to reverse this trend in order to sustain the peace and unity in our beloved country.It is our hope that the president would carefully consider the issues raised above when he presents to the nation an agenda on some policy measures we need to take to consolidate the peace and unity.We are awake!Kofi Asamoah-Siaw National Secretary, PPP