The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has lashed out at the former president John Mahama for saying the 2024 polls is going to be “a do or die” affair at the polling stations.
The defeated presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 elections has been randomly condemned by Ghanaians over his radio comment.
“The election will be won or lost at the polling station, so at the polling station it will be ‘do or die’. I did not say ‘All die be die’, I said it will be do or die, because the right thing must be done,” Mahama said on Tuesday, provoking many reactions calling on him to retract.
Reacting to the development, the General secretary of the NPP, John Boadu said Mahama should have known better as a statesman.
“It is a distasteful comment that does not belong in our fast-maturing electoral democracy. We note that John Mahama stubbornly refuses to retract. Rather, he is seeking refuge in semantics and grammar, struggling to explain the impossible,” Boadu said at a press conference on Friday 10 September 2021.
“However, we are not surprised. Being in opposition and desperate to come back to power, John Mahama must be panicking at the pace at which the Akufo-Addo Administration is moving. The President continues to commission completed projects and initiate new ones on his working tours of the country. Everywhere the President goes, there is fervent support for his policies which are visibly changing lives. Infrastructure is springing up fast in the new regions. One hundred and six 1D1F factories are working full blast with many more in the pipeline.”
He added: “The Presidents’ sterling management of Covid-19 has opened the space for former President Mahama to move around easily. Growth is moving in the right direction. We are the destination for the highest FDI inflows in West Africa. Agenda 111 has been launched with strong prospects to change the health sector to another level. In confirmation of these works, the IMF has granted Ghana one billion dollars in Special Drawing Rights without any conditionalities whatsoever.
“No wonder former President Mahama is desperate. He has no blueprint to match the progress he is seeing. He has no alternative for Ghanaians. Indeed, if he had something of substance to sell, he would not resort to the language of ‘do or die’.
NDC never prepared
“‘Do or die’ at polling stations depends on the preparedness of the party. The NDCs’ history shows they have never truly been prepared at polling stations. They have not been able to design and implement an architecture that can deliver results at polling station to enable them inform themselves. In 2016, when they told the world they were in a comfortable lead, they had no inkling of the direction of the results. Again, in 2020, when they lost, they again told the world they had won and proceeded to the supreme court without a shred of evidence to back their claims.
“On the contrary, the NPP can tell within six hours, the results of a national election. Because we are serious about governance. John Mahama’s lack of electoral preparedness, which he blames on everybody but himself, stems from his own admission of indecisiveness as a leader. His own observations about his lack of decisiveness in his infamous autobiography reflects where he is now.
“This is a man who has been MP, Deputy Minister, Minister, Vice President, President and losing Presidential Candidate. He is the greatest beneficiary of high-profile positions within the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Yet, he still does not realise and appreciate that leadership is about service.
“He cannot understand that leadership is about vision. He does not know that leadership is about hope.
We will not expend precious hours persuading him of the error of his ways. John Mahama’s deeds and utterances will continue to expose the incompetence and desperation again and again. He is simply incapable of leading this cherished democracy that Ghana is carefully building. NPP will continue to implement policies that are responsive to the needs of the people. That has always been the NPP way.”
Watch the full press conference below:
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