Ex-President John Dramani Mahama has ridiculed President Akufo-Addo, describing him as a ‘substitute in a football match’ who has realized that the captain’s role in the game wasn’t as easy as he perceived while sitting on the bench.
Mr. Mahama, while speaking to party members at the Unity Walk in Cape Coast over the weekend said Akufo-Addo and his government are having a taste of their own medicine, having lambasted him while in opposition, making it seem as though he was ‘joking’ in the seat of government, and yet having to face the exact same things they poked him for.
“When we were campaigning, I said that when there’s a football match and someone sitting at the side assumes that he can play better than the captain, when they are called on to play, that’s when they’ll realise their smoothness level. When NDC was in government, those in opposition thought that leading a country was something easy and so you heard them make statements like [we will reduce petrol when we come into power, we’ll reduce electricity bills, condemned the NDC arguing that the state was so bad that even electricity bills were higher than rent] today, between the two, which is higher? Light bills!”
He condemned the media for taking sides with the NPP government maintaining that the same persons who linked his administration with negativity and tagged NDC members as ‘Mahama boys’ or ‘girls’ have in the current government’s situation, retreated and are being soft on government officials.
“During my tenure, everything someone does they tag the person ‘Mahama boy’ or ‘Mahama girl’ but today the narrative is different. The media refer to people by their names,” he told the crowd.
Touching on issues regarding the party’s flagbearership and names that have emerged as possible contestants in the race for the presidency in the 2020 elections, Mr. Mahama said,
“I know there are several of my colleagues who have declared an intention to run. They are all party members and they are eligible to stand.
“Let me caution: after the flag bearer contest, whoever wins, all of us will have to rally round to support that person.
And, so, please let us not go personal, let us not insult each other because all of us belong to the same NDC family, and, so, if anybody has declared to stand it is his right to do so. Don’t insult him because, at the end of the process, all of us need to come together to support whoever wins as the flagbearer.
“I have no problem with any of my colleagues. Spio was my minister, I worked as his deputy minister and then he became my colleague …and then when I was in government he worked as my minister of state, I can’t have any problem with Spio.
I can’t have any problem with Joshua. Joshua was my colleague, we went to parliament the same year and we were in parliament together.
“When he became Vice-Chancellor of UPSA, he invited me for so many programmes in UPSA, so today I can’t have a problem with Joshua. Sylvester was in parliament with me; we were colleagues in parliament, he worked at our NHIS CEO. After that, he came as a presidential staffer at the Flagstaff House. I hope nobody takes offence that I didn’t mention some other people, Atubiga is my favourite presidential candidate.”
Sunday’s walk began from the Robert Mensah Stadium at Siwdo in Cape Coast with party bigwigs including former ministers and government appointees actively participating in it. They walked through some principal streets of Cape Coast; the Starlet 91 road to Kotokuraba through to Tantri, Brofoyedur and Ntsin, ending at London Bridge where some party stalwarts addressed the gathering.
