NPP Blasts Mahama Over Tribal Comments
Samuel Abu Jinapor
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Mr Mahama was quoted to have told a rally at Zualerigu in the Upper East Region over the weekend that “our brother Aliu Mahama was vice president for eight years. I was vice president for three-and-a-half years. For almost 12 years, we have tasted vice presidency.
It’s no longer exciting. It’s no longer what we want. If NPP think they want vote from here, they should put my brother Bawumia in number one and let the two of us contest and then they will get something from here. The vice president we chop it aaaah, we are tired.”
These comments of the president has made him the hottest man in the country today, after his campaign coordinator and Deputy Minister of Local Government Elvis Afriyie-Ankrah, recently threw caution to the wind and likened the NPP’s promise to provide ‘free SHS’ to the collapsed Melcom building virtually every Ghanaian was grieving over.
The NPP believed that “this is a very reckless statement, which may even be interpreted to mean that he spent his first three years or so at the Castle desperately looking for the opportunity to take President John Atta Mills’ seat”.
At a press conference in the Ashanti regional capital of Kumasi yesterday, a member of the party’s campaign, Samuel Abdulai Jinapor said, “This is a clear sign that the President has lost the battle on issues and is now resorting to fanning ethnocentrism in this country”, insisting that “this is a very dangerous and irresponsible way to rule a nation as rich and peaceful in its diversity as Ghana is.”
On November 1, 2012, the President made a similar comment whilst addressing the chiefs and people of Nankpanduri in the Northern Region, with a call on all ‘Northerners’ to give their backing to him so he could ascend the seat and make them ‘proud’.
According to Abu Jinapor, “That is the most insulting thing a leader can say to his people” in view of the fact that the President did not ask the people to because of what he could do to improve their lives but because of where he comes from.”
That, according to him, was because President Mahama and his ruling NDC had nothing to show for their four-year mandate given them by Ghanaians.
Treachery
He emphasised, “We cannot go down this dangerous path and wish to make it plain to President Mahama that if he has nothing better to offer to Ghanaians, at least, he shouldn’t destroy what he inherited, a nation with a long and proud history of multi-ethnic harmony.” He asked “…should other people also say that Southerners should also vote for Nana Akufo-Addo or any other candidate from the South?”
That, he said was because “Ghana has come a long way for her to be divided by myopic, visionless, petty-minded, and self-seeking politicians in the mould of President Mahama, who is desperate for power” and that “Ghana deserves better than the politics President Mahama is pursuing”.
Mr Jinapor believed that President Mahama and the ruling NDC had nothing to offer Ghanaians since “the President is recklessly driving Ghana back onto the road now abandoned by countries like Rwanda and Kenya, the dangerous road of tribal politics and we the young people of Ghana are cautioning him to stop this useless tribal politics” which he described as cheap, unhealthy and dangerous.
He noted, “No amount of useless emotional blackmailing would divert the attention of the people of this country from the failures of this NDC government.”
“With very little to show for the three-and-a-half years that he was in charge of the Economic Management Team as Vice President and subsequently as President, due to the unfortunate death of the elected President, the late JEA Mills, our caretaker President, John Dramani Mahama, has decided to put substance aside and concentrate on petty and divisive politics,” he said.
However, reacting to the anger that has greeted the president’s comments, Hannah Tetteh, Director of Communications for John Mahama Campaign, said the comments were directed at a particular group the president was interacting with.