Dr. Kabiru Mahama, a Technical Advisor at the Office of the Vice President has explained why President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo does not travel overseas with his presidential chair.
The chair has become famous in recent years because the presidential convoy always carries it to almost all functions Akufo-Addo attends in Ghana.
Officials of the National Democratic Congress, NDC, have serially claimed that the chair is allocated a V8 to carry it around.
Responding to that claim, Dr. Mahama said it was untrue and a case of NDC exploiting the issue for propaganda purposes.
“This propaganda about this presidential chair ought to stop because we know that the president goes with his handlers and presidential staffers. If a president for national security reasons…” he stressed on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana programme, November 1, 2022.
When asked by host Randy Abbey if he was “justifying taking a special chair to a radio studio,” Dr. Mahama responded:
“I am justifying the fact that what the president eats, what the president wears, what the president sits on must be checked made against the National Security standards.
Pushed about why the same standards are not applied when Akufo-Addo travels outside the country, he responded: “Let me tell you why it may not be applicable outside Ghana, one; systems elsewhere are different.”
He cited the example of the American president, Joe Biden, when he went to the Queen’s funeral, with his own fleet. “That’s the American system,” Dr. Mahama stressed adding that the US being in economic difficulties would not mean they lower their security standards.
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“To suggest that this chair is having its own car and is being fueled when it can easily be placed in the boot of a car and go anywhere they want, you try to make a lot of noise about it,” he added.
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