Member of Parliament for Tamale North Constituency, Alhaji Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini has taken a swipe at Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia over comments he made about John Mahama as regards his submission on the economy and data provision by government in the Coronavirus fight.
According to him, Bawumia’s consistent attacks on Former President Mahama is proof that the former is only useful for attacking and undermining him.
Describing it as his ‘oxygen’, Mr. Suhuyini said the vice President has lost relevance, hence has resorted to doing the bidding of the party in the only way that makes him stand out; attacking him.
Speaking on Citi TV’s ‘Big Issues’ show Saturday, Mr. Suhuyini said,
“We have Dr. Bawumia whose oxygen in my view is undermining his brother John Mahama and so you take that away from him and he is irrelevant in his communication and the NPP’s governance.”
He added, “Since Dr. Bawumia became vice in this country, take his attempts to undermine John Mahama out and he has nothing on the table. They say go and attack him, that is when Dr. Bawumia’s popularity soars in the NPP and he knows it. So when he is feeling down, that is when he goes for his aphrodisiac, ‘go after John, and then the NPP will hail you’ so that is where he comes from.”
Mr. Suhuyini also accused the ruling government of massaging the truth and denying Ghanaians the facts on the ground instead of communicating the truth about the country’s case to citizens as it is.
“Emphasis seems to be on communicating the disease away, instead of sitting down to do what is important. Even though they will tout science and data, they will never look at science and data because for them, it is a good sound byte in the communication.” He said.
“There is no debate, the truth is that our economy is in crisis. As to how we got to that crisis, we can discuss that, COVID is part but we are saying that there is no need to get Ghanaians a sense of what does not exist because we are all in this together. Let us appreciate the effects of what we are going through so that we can tighten our belts whilst expecting measures to be brought forth so we can ease the burden instead of denying the obvious, being the reason why we’ve gone to the IMF for support.” He added.
Background
The former President has been making statements on the Ghanaian economy in the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, suggesting in a number of his engagements that he superintended a better economy than the NPP is currently doing.
Dr. Bawumia in response challenged former President’s claim, while advising him to look at data on his own record in government, as well as data on the economic management and performance of the Akufo-Addo government before he speaks.
"My humble advice to former President Mahama is to take a look at the data. This is not green book data, this is the real data, look at it again before you speak, otherwise, you will end up embarrassing yourself," he stated.
Member of Parliament for Tamale North, Alhaji Alhassan Sayibu Suhuyini