'Animal-watching' Clergy hypocritical – Mahama

Former President John Mahama has criticised the clergy and civil society groups in Ghana for what he says is their silence over the “nepotism” in the Akufo-Addo government.

According to him, recognisable voices in the country are now turning deaf ears to issues that were treated as front burner under his administration.

Addressing some NDC supporters in the UK, Mr. Mahama said he is surprised at the way the media and other prominent individuals are tolerating the level of cronyism under the NPP administration.

“I never ever thought that Ghanaians will tolerate the level of nepotism in the government we see today, it’s terrible, I never ever thought. In our case one of our own said I was running a family and friends government and NPP took it up, when I had no blood relation of mine in government except for some lonely deputy minister, Joyce Bawa Mogtari, my aunt’s daughter. She was the only blood relation in my government and yet they said family and friends and when you ask where are they, they say ooo, but your own person said it.

“Now today look at it, that’s the new standard and yet civil society is quiet, religious and traditional leaders are quiet. When NDC comes the next time and Alabi or Bagbin or who is the President and they appoint their relatives into government are they now coming to come out and say it? Must the standards of measuring standards differ because of who is in the presidency? That is the hypocrisy of our politics, that’s the height of hypocrisy we have in Ghana,” Mahama told the NDC gathering in the United Kingdom where the party is on a rebuilding tour.

He continued: “Something is pardonable when one government is in power but when another is in power it’s unpardonable, things that the media would have been so loud about under my administration, it happens every day and it’s like it’s business as usual. That is the hypocrisy of our civil society and religious and traditional leaders, everybody is quiet, suddenly some say they don’t watch TV anymore and that they watch animals.

“In our time they were not watching animals, they were watching political discussions. You’re now tired of too much politics…you’ll be tired, because your darling government is super incompetent and so you’re tired of hearing the analysis, that’s the hypocrisy we face in our country. So let us not buy into their propaganda”.