President Nana Akufo-Addo has delivered a sucker punch to political actors whose sole mission is to politicise the nation's COVID-19 response for their own parochial political gains.
Delivering his 9th Presidential Address to the nation on Sunday night, President Akufo-Addo, who gave an update on latest figures of confirmed cases, recoveries and deaths, asked Ghanaians not to begrudge these political elements who politicise the Coronavirus because they need such politicization of the pandemic to stay afloat politically.
"I know some political actors will want you to believe that our current numbers represent a failure on the part of government. Do not begrudge them. They need to make such comments for their political survival," the President said.
Many have interpreted the President's remarks as a riposte to former President Mahama, who has been accused of politicising Ghana's response to the Coronavirus pandemic through his regular commentary and criticism of government's efforts.
Over the weekend when Ghana's confirmed cases hit over 4000, the former President took to twitter to attack the government for failing Ghanaians because of the increment.
"From 3,091 to 4,012 #COVID19 cases within 24 hours; Government is certainly failing the people of Ghana. Fear gripped many homes last night when the latest confirmed cases were released. And that is understandable," Mahama wrote on his Twitter page.
The former President's post, which was accompanied by a short video clip, however attracted overwhelming condemnation from Twitter users who accused him of politicising the Coronavirus pandemic which has devastated the world and thrown global economies into disarray.
Ghana is number one African country testing per capita
Meanwhile, President Akufo-Addo explained that Ghana's latest number of 4700 confirmed cases, out of which 494 have recovered and 22 have died, have been due to the government's decision to embark on aggressive testing and contact tracing.
The President revealed that as at Sunday May 10, a total of 160,501 tests had been conducted, making Ghana the leading country in Africa testing for Coronavirus per capita, and among a select few countries doing contact tracing.
"We must understand that the more people we test for the virus, the more persons we will discover as positive, and, thus, have the opportunity to isolate and treat them," said President Akufo-Addo.
"If you do not test people for the virus, you will not find the persons who are positive, let alone isolate them from population and treat them, and prevent them from spreading the virus."
The President added that if Ghana was doing what many other countries were doing, which is, not embarking on contact tracing, Ghana's total confirmed case would have been one-third of the 4700 confirmed cases, as contact tracing accounts for two-third of Ghana's cases so far.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo