President John Mahama
CONTRARY TO claims by officials and sidekicks of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) that President John Dramani Mahama has been a unifier and peace-loving person, a lawmaker has indicated the current President would go down in history as the most divisive, ethnocentric and insulting head of state.
Speaking to DAILY GUIDE in a telephone interview, the Member of Parliament for Nsuta-Kwamang Beposo and former Deputy Attorney-General, Kwame Osei-Prempeh, urged Ghanaians to kick out President Mahama for what he described as the President’s persistent insults and attacks on ethnic groups and political opponents.
Mr Osei-Prempeh recounted that whilst in Parliament as a lawmaker, President Mahama insulted a whole tribe during a debate on an issue on the floor of the House.
“He told me (Osei-Prempeh) during the debate that I could not pronounce a word properly because I was an Ashanti,” the Nsuta-Kwamang Beposo MP further revealed.
“This kind of racist and tribal comment,” according to him, would have attracted a sanction even on a football pitch as happened to Chelsea captain, John Terry in England.
“Even a footballer was punished for making racist comment and yet Honourable John Mahama stood on the floor of Parliament to insult a section of Ghanaians,” he noted.
The former Deputy Attorney-General indicated that apart from President Mahama leading NDC, which has insulted every sector of the Ghanaian society including chiefs, pastors, bishops and judges, the current first gentleman of the land, was personally guilty of insults in the past and in recent times.
Chronicling more insults from the NDC presidential candidate, Osei-Prempeh recalled that when the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MPs opposed “President Mahama’s infamous and corrupt STX deal, he described those who opposed the deal as foolish and baloney and even when the project failed, he could not have the courtesy to say sorry to those he had insulted.”
Again, “after ‘God in His own wisdom’ as President Mahama had put it, had taken Prof. Mills away and he was criticized for his lavish ‘thank- you tours’, he used the word ‘useless’ to describe his critics.”
“Just recently President Mahama told the people of Akim Abuakwa that they were noted for violence during elections when he knew this was not true. This is an insult to the Abuakwa state,” Osei-Prempeh bemoaned.
According to Osei-Prempeh, if President Mahama did not see any of his outbursts as insults and wanted to portray himself as a saint, then he was either not being honest or being a hypocrite.
He also described President Mahama as ethnocentric because the first gentleman of the land recently called on people from the Northern part of Ghana to vote for him since he was a Northerner.
Addressing the campaign launch of the Kumawu constituency branch of the NPP, he said that it was surprising that President John Mahama could stand at the Great Hall of the KNUST during the signing of the Kumasi peace accord to say that by his nature, he does not insult his political opponents.
He said if any of the presidential candidates was guilty of insults, then it was President Mahama.
Osei-Prempeh urged the electorate to vote for NPP and lauded Nana Akufo-Addo for his bold policy of free Senior High School (SHS) adding that “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a step” and only big dreamers take such bold decisions.
He wondered whether when President John Mahama, his siblings and all the ministers from the North were enjoying free education all schools had classroom blocks, all roads were tarred and people had health care.
According to Osei-Prempeh, it was the boldness of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah which had yielded fruits in producing “prominent well educated Northern elites who are shamefully opposing what had made them what they are.”
He urged people from the North residing the South who were mainly poor and could not educate their children to vote for the NPP so that their children could also enjoy free education and become useful citizens like President John Mahama, Moses Asaga, Alban Babgin, Haruna Iddrisu, Cletus Avoka and Muhammad Mumuni among others.
By Awudu Mahama