NANA CALLS ME THIEF - SAYS MAHAMA

Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, September 08, 2016

President John Mahama has made astonishing claims that the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has been calling him a ‘thief’ hence, his recent blistering attack on the opposition party leader.

Mr Mahama said it was the NPP leader who started the ‘insults’ with the insinuation that his administration is corrupt. “For four years he has described me as incompetent; for four years he’s described me as visionless; for four years he’s described me as a thief,” the president lamented during the ‘Good Evening Ghana’ programme on Metro TV Sunday, hosted by Paul Adom-Otchere.

Justification

The response given by President Mahama indicated clearly that he was unhappy with the situation and under pressure to parry some of the tags hanging around the neck of his government, including naked stealing of public funds by some appointees of the government.

Nana Akufo-Addo is not noted for insults but rather uses every platform to point out the faults of the government; and President Mahama appeared to have ‘misconstrued’ the NPP leader’s style of politics, according to the opposition party’s National Youth Organizer, Sammy Awuku.

President Mahama said during the long interview that defended the ‘unpresidential’ comments he had been making about Nana Akufo-Addo, that the NPP leader started it all.

Paul Adom-Otchere: Mr President, you attacked Nana Addo.

President Mahama: He Nana Addo attacked me first. For four years he has described me as incompetent; for four years he’s described me as visionless; for four years he’s described me as a thief.

Paul Adom-Otchere: Nana Addo called you a thief?

President John Mahama: He says when he comes to power he won’t steal the country's money, what does that mean? It means I am stealing Ghanaians’ money.”

Intolerance Tag

The president said that Nana Akufo-Addo must learn to accept criticisms after attacking him for four years.

When asked if he indeed believed that Nana Akufo-Addo had divided his party, President Mahama asked sarcastically, “What do you think he has done?”

He underscored, “I’m a politician and I know it’s an occupational hazard sometimes to have your opponents vilify you, so I don’t take it as anything.

I am campaigning and I am saying that we need, at this stage of Ghana’s history, somebody who can bring the country together and my opponent’s track record does not fit that role because in his own party, he is not able to bring his people together.”

Attack Dogs

The president described the NPP elements who are harsh on his government but defends Nana Akufo-Addo as ‘attack dogs.’

“Today it is the truth; people can’t criticize Akufo-Addo in NPP; if you criticize him, they will suspend you or sack you or his attack dogs will be set on you. Ask people in NPP, they are quiet; they can see the bus is going to crash but if they say it he will attack them. So they are waiting for the bus to crash, and when it crashes, I said they will take the bus and send it to Kokompe to repair it and put it back on the road for 2021,” Mahama said.

“He (Nana Akufo-Addo) should learn to accept criticism, I do; people insult me, vilify me, I don’t utter a word. And so I say you cannot unify your party so you cannot unify Ghana and I think that the kind of president Ghana needs at this stage in our history is one who can bring us together. And so you must prove a track record that you can bring people together and most people do not think that he can do that.”

Outmoded Campaign

He said the promises being made by the opposition, including ‘1 district, 1 factory’ and ‘1 village, 1 dam’ were all not new and that his government was already implementing some of these programmes.

The president said the campaign promises of Nana Akufo-Addo and his party were ‘outmoded,’ adding that the opposition party should be abreast with modern realities.

“You just throw out a promise – that is yesterday’s campaigning. In those days, my father’s time, you just threw out something and people just picked it.

‘One-village one-dam,’ they don’t know if it is a dugout or a barrage dam or a proper irrigation dam, they don’t know.” President Mahama added cynically, “One-district, one-factory – what kind of factory? Is it a car assembling plant? Is it the kind of factories that we know? Is it electronic appliances, textiles and garments or small and medium enterprises?

“What we call a dam in the north is a dugout and every village has a dugout. It’s a pond we drank from in the north when there was no water. But now that most of the communities have water, the dugouts are used for livestock watering,” he rubbished Nana Addo’s proposed policy.

He also claimed “This thing about one factory per district came up under the rural enterprise project. It’s not a new idea. It’s a very old idea. If you are talking about small and medium enterprises, like gari making factories, small processing companies, and the use of gratis  machines, that is happening already. So the promises are not new.”

Ford Saga

President Mahama said parliament wasted taxpayers’ money when it was recalled to investigate issues surrounding the $100,000 Ford vehicle he received from a Burkina Faso contractor, Djibril Kanazoe.

He said the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) was already investigating the matter and there was no need for the legislature to take any steps to investigate the matter, which had been raised by the minority and subsequently in a unilateral fashion, dismissed by the speaker of parliament.

He pointed out that he’s not in a position to use his opponent’s health status in his campaign.

“When I was campaigning with Prof Mills, our opponents played the health card against him.”

“I’ve told my compatriots that we don’t run on the health of my opponents. It’s something people will talk about but I don’t take advantage of a person’s health. I believe that I have enough to talk about without running on my opponent’s health record.”

In a rather hypocritical taunt he said he is not the right person to say whether or not it was proper for Africawatch to publish the health issues of his opponent saying “I won’t take advantage of somebody’s health to run my campaign. I’ve enough to tell the public to get me a second term. I’ll be elected not based on somebody’s health but on my own merit.”

Montie 3 Remission

On the Montie 3 saga, the president said he decided to release the three NDC activists who were jailed by the Supreme Court for contempt in the interest of the nation and insisted that he did not exercise his prerogative powers arbitrarily but “they remain convicted, many people don’t know this.”

He added, "I think that the overriding consideration must be that all arms of government must act constitutionally. I swore an oath on the 7th of January 2013 to abide by the Constitution and so every action I take must be in consonance with the constitution.”

"The young men were called before the Supreme Court for contempt and even before they were called before the court, they apologised and showed remorse, before the court also, they apologised. They asked for mitigation before the court, retracted and even after they were sent to jail, they apologised again.”

“I don’t know what interest it will serve anyone the three extra months they would have served there. I did exactly what the Constitution wanted me to do. I consulted the Council of State and they recommended that I activate my powers under Article 72 and that is what I did. And so I think that I acted in the interest of the state.”