{"id":1263994,"date":"2022-12-11T12:04:06","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T12:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/11\/my-dead-goat-comment-was-taken-out-context-by-npp\/"},"modified":"2022-12-11T12:04:06","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T12:04:06","slug":"my-dead-goat-comment-was-taken-out-context-by-npp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/12\/11\/my-dead-goat-comment-was-taken-out-context-by-npp\/","title":{"rendered":"My &#8216;dead goat&#8217; comment was taken out context by NPP"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"td-post-featured-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"340\" class=\"entry-thumb\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Mahama-UPSA-Address-867x424-1-696x340.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"Mahama-UPSA-Address-867x424\"\/><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/1400073094&#038;color=%23ff5500&#038;auto_play=false&#038;hide_related=false&#038;show_comments=true&#038;show_user=true&#038;show_reposts=false&#038;show_teaser=true&#038;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Former President John Mahama has explained why he said he had dead goat syndrome.<\/p>\n<p>According to him, he used the idiomatic expression due to the frustration associated with the deregulation of petroleum prices.<\/p>\n<p><!-- \/22191989129,1002554\/MGL\/mgl_ado_atunwa_300x250 --><\/p>\n<p>This, he stated, is because he knew that if the fuel prices went up, the leadership of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and other unions will not leave him in peace.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Mahama said he could not bear the mass labour unrest that was prevailing at the time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was one of the most harassed Presidents by Organised Labour. That is what led to the dead goat syndrome\u2026 because when you kill a goat, you cannot frighten it with the knife again,\u201d he explained during a lecture at Academic City University College on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am the only government in the Fourth Republic where all organised labour came together and went on strike and shut down the country \u2026.,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He, however, stated that his comment was taken out of context by the then-opposition \u2013 New Patriotic Party (NPP).<\/p>\n<p>It would be recalled that the ex-president in 2015 said he had become impervious to threats of strikes and demonstrations in Ghana and will not yield to any of such threats in the then upcoming election year.<\/p>\n<p>Adopting what he calls a \u201cdead-goat syndrome\u201d, the President said he would not be hoodwinked by such strategies by workers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have seen more demonstrations and strikes in my first two years. I don\u2019t think it can get worse. It is said that when you kill a goat and you frighten it with a knife, it doesn\u2019t fear the knife because it is dead already.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a dead goat syndrome,\u201d he told a Ghanaian population in Botswana where he was on a three-day official state visit.<\/p>\n<p>The country, during Mr Mahama\u2019s tenure, experienced a number of strikes and demonstrations from workers, most of whom protested against poor conditions of service.<\/p>\n<p>The Trades Union Congress was one of the many workers\u2019 unions that were on the streets to protest the worsening economic crisis.<\/p>\n<p>The President said such demonstrations are part of strategies by workers\u2019 groups to tie the hands of government, especially in election years.<\/p>\n<p>He noted that when governments yield to such threats, the economy and budget are thrown out of gear.<\/p>\n<p>            <!--  [embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=videoseries[\/embed]<!--\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>--><\/p>\n<div class=\"youtube-embed\" data-video_id=\"pAKnBbRodwI\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sedea Etea Nie on Adom TV (10-12-22)\" width=\"696\" height=\"392\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pAKnBbRodwI?feature=oembed&#038;enablejsapi=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President John Mahama has explained why he said he had dead goat syndrome. According to him, he used the idiomatic expression due to the frustration associated with the deregulation of petroleum prices. This, he stated, is because he knew that if the fuel prices went up, the leadership of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1237010,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[187],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1263994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1263994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1263994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1263994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1263994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1263994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}