Ghanaians Have Been Lenient With Akufo-Addo– Mahama

Former President John Dramani Mahama has suggested that Ghanaians have been too lenient with Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s New Patriotic Party (NPP) government. 

According to the leader of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), he would have been crucified if he had been responsible for just a fraction of Nana Addo’s mess.

Speaking in an interview with KSM on Pan-Africa TV on Tuesday, July 25, 2023, Mr Mahama insisted that the current government had a deliberate intention to come to power to mess up the country. 

He accuses the New Patriotic Party government of lying to Ghanaians for power in 2016.

“They [NPP] have created a crisis of confidence in the population in our democracy because now it’s easy for Ghanaians to think that politicians are liars; they’ll just lie for political power.”

“If I did one-tenth of what they have done these last eight years, I’m sure that I would have been pilloried and crucified on a cross by now. There’s a bit of hypocrisy in it.”

Mr Mahama also said the current government is now finding people to blame them for their own problems. 

“It’s NPP propaganda…they are in their mess, and they want to draw everybody else into the same mess,” he added. 

“They [NPP] are happy to push that mantra and make it look like, ‘Oww, you’re better off staying with us because if the NDC comes, it will be the same.’ That is the psychology of the propaganda they are doing, It’s not the same” he reiterated.

Mr Mahama touted the achievements of his government and previous NDC administrations.

According to him, the NDC always puts the interests of Ghanaians first before anything else. 

“We in the NDC have a track record. We have given more Ghanaians electricity than any party in this country. Rawlings started the national and rural electrification programmes which have brought Ghana to above 80 per cent of electricity coverage among the top 10 in Africa.”

“We started the digital revolution in this country. I was the Minister of Communication when we divided post and telecommunications and created Ghana Telecom and allowed Spacefon and all the mobile operators to come in. We started laying fibre optics in this country. We did the eastern corridor fibre optic.”

“We’ve given more Ghanaians water than any party in the history of this country. When Prof [John Evans Atta Mills] came into office, water coverage was 55 per cent; by the time I left office, water coverage was 72 per cent.”

“Seventy-two per cent of Ghanaians had access to good drinking water. We have built all the public universities in this country. NPP hasn’t built one public university. They are just good at renaming them with their party figures. And, so, somebody builds a university and you come and name it Dombo University, Tedam University, and so, don’t let them come to tell us we and them are the same. We are not the same. They should just wallow in their mess and leave us alone.”