As a sitting president at the time, having lost such a crucial election, which on many scores, could have earned him many plaudits, such as the one about being the first man in Ghana’s history to have led a party to ‘Break the 8’ in the political landscape of this country, his pain was understandable when a three-time contender upset his dreams.
For many Ghanaian voters, it was an expected win for Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), particularly because of the wealth of hope he had promised them.
A longtime dream coming true for Nana Akufo-Addo, he has gone on to win a second term at the presidency, and is now only preparing for retirement, but John Mahama still has old sores to tend to.
Now more than ever, the former president wants a seat back in the highest office of the land, with the hope that he can, perhaps, right all the wrongs he might have committed when he was president between January 2013 and January 2017.
But it appears John Dramani Mahama may have just been the cause of his downfall in 2016 when he lost the presidency to his ‘arch-political-rival’, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Words, they say, are powerful, and that is exactly what the following excerpts from John Mahama in a Wednesday, November 6, 2013, report may have done to him:
“For those who disagree with me and are anxious to see my back, [they are] not to worry. 2016 is not too far away; I will urge them to be patient. In this difficult job, the least one expects is comradeship and solidarity,” he told his critics during an orientation workshop for Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Chief Executives (MMDCEs).
The president was addressing the subject of the enormity of the governance responsibilities he was confronted with, coupled with the fact that only a year into his full-term presidency, he had been in court over an election petition that lasted more than half the year.
Besides, major issues such as the erratic power supply in the country (dumsor) and other pressing needs of the people may have contributed to why John Dramani Mahama would so predict doom for himself in the 2016 general elections.
Watch the latest episode of #SayItLoud on GhanaWeb TV below:
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John Dramani Mahama was the NDC's 2020 presidential candidate