John Dramani Mahama addresses 31st December Revolution
I fixed dumsor, John Mahama declares
John Dramani Mahama has thrown a shade at the sitting president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, over the latter’s refusal to take responsibility for all the rots happening in the country, even five years after he took over office from him.
The former president explained that it is disturbing that even for the democracy that Ghana has, and which many had hopes in, recent happenings have given especially the youth cause to be worried about the future of the country.
“We started the Fourth Republic with a lot of hope that with the advent of the Fourth Republic, the foundations that had been laid by the PNDC, we’d be able to build on it and be able to provide social justice and equity to all our people.
“Many years on, if you look at the events we currently find our country in, a lot of people, especially our young people, are losing faith in our democracy and we can’t let this happen. Let us keep hope alive. I believe there is light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.
John Dramani Mahama was addressing a gathering at the 40th anniversary celebration of the 31st December Revolution in Accra when he made these comments.
The theme for the celebration was, “40 Years of Democratic Stability; The Legacy of the Legend.”
The former president explained that it takes strong leaders to avoid complaints and rather focus on getting the job done, just as he did when came into office and realized how badly the power situation in it was.
“Leadership is about responsibility. If you are elected a leader, you take responsibility. It is a poor leader who says it’s not my fault. You were not elected to shift blame and refuse responsibility. We had power crisis in this country; dumsor. Because of lack of lack of investment in generation for many years, and so we were consuming more power than we were consuming, and that was the situation I met and yet, I did not say, ‘It’s not my fault. I went to parliament and I took responsibility and I said I will fix it and we fixed it,” he said.
He went on to ask the incumbent New Patriotic Party government, led by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, to give way for him and the National Democratic Congress to take over the reins of power since they can do a better job.
“Today, somebody says I inherited a weak economy. Five years on, you cannot take responsibility and it’s still about Mahama and NDC and Mahama and NDC and Mahama and NDC. If you can’t do the job, just give way and let the NDC come and do it for you,” he said.
The 40th anniversary of the 31st December Revolution was held in Accra and the former president spoke on a number of issues, basing a lot of his address on how the revolution came about, as well as how Ghana got its current constitution.
