Debates can't be at Mahama's whim - Lecturer

President John Mahama and the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) cannot call for a one-on-one debate at their whim, Dr Eric Opoku Mensah, a political communications lecturer, has said.

He told Regina Borley Bortey on 12Live on Class91.3FM that though debates are “very important for the democratic process … it cannot be called to satisfy the whims of any particular campaign or any presidential candidate so it’s unfortunate that the call is coming at this point in time”.

Meanwhile, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) has said it will “never” accede to the President’s one-on-one debate challenge with main opposition flag bearer Nana Akufo-Addo.

The party’s Director of Communications, Nana Akomea, told Moro Awudu on Class91.3FM’s Inside Politics programme on Thursday, 20 October, that it was amazing that President Mahama, after refusing to be part of the Institute of Economic Affairs’ debate for presidential candidates, was now pushing for a one-on-one with Mr Akufo-Addo.

Also, Mr Akufo-Addo’s spokesperson, Mustapha Hamid has said if President Mahama is really serious about debating his boss, he should do the proper thing by officially writing to the office of Nana Akufo-Addo to that effect, rather than throwing challenges on the airwaves.

Mr Mahama has thrown several challenges to Mr Akufo-Addo for a one-on-one debate. In a recent interview with Ovation International, Mr Mahama accused Nana Akufo-Addo of running away from his debate challenge.

On Thursday, 20 October, Mr Mahama, during an interview with Volta Star Radio in the Volta Region where he is on a four-day tour, repeated his debate challenge to Mr Akufo-Addo.

“I think debates are very important. When I threw the first challenge, I threw it because a lot of misinformation was being thrown all over the place, and Nana Akufo-Addo and his running mate continue to misinform the Ghanaian public and that is why I said we should have a one-on-one debate.

“If we have a one-on-one debate … Ghanaians will be able to tell who is telling the truth and who is not telling the truth. They [NPP] say the economy is in crisis, if we had a debate, you’ll show why you think the economy is in crisis, the documents are all there, the statistics are there, and, so, I believe that Ghanaians deserve a debate between myself and Nana Akufo-Addo and I hope that he will rise to the occasion,” Mr Mahama said.

Responding to Mr Mahama’s challenge, Mr Hamid told Kwadwo Asare-Baffour Acheampong (KABA) on Asempa FM’s Ekosii sen political talk show on Thursday, 20 October that: “First of all, he [Mr Mahama] should walk the talk, not the talk.” “He should focus on the work given to him to do by the people of Ghana. That is the most important thing. It isn’t debates that will change the living conditions of Ghanaians.”

Secondly, Mr Hamid said, “if he [Mr Mahama] really wanted to debate Nana Akufo-Addo, why then did he ditch the IEA’s presidential debate with the excuse that it was not necessary? So when did he realise that debates are very important? That is called hypocrisy. Mr Mahama doesn’t believe in debates and he has clearly demonstrated that.”

Thirdly, he added: “If the president really wants a debate, he shouldn’t be resorting to the media to invite Nana Akufo-Addo to one. Is that how to invite people to a debate? Even for weddings, invitation cards are distributed and, so, what is he talking about? The President is not being truthful. It is a half-hearted tactic that he is using.”

Asked if his response amounted to a rejection of the president’s challenge, Mr Hamid said “because that invitation is not necessary, he should walk the talk, not talk the talk. Everyone in Ghana knows talk is not necessary but rather doing the work the president has been given to do.”

He, however, noted that “let’s see what happens” should another organisation apart from the IEA decide to organise a one-on-one debate between the two politicians.

In Dr Opoku Mensah’s view, “The decision by the NDC not to debate these past few months was an unfortunate decision,” adding: “… I was really surprised to hear that the president was now calling for a debate. … It is rather unfortunate for this call to come at this time because from what I gather from everything that the president has spoken about, it seems the president is now only calling for a debate because there have been certain allegations levelled against him and he wants an opportunity to correct that and I don’t think that is fundamentally helpful to the democratic process.”

“ … So at the time the president decided he wasn’t going to participate in the debate, the NDC figured out that so far as their campaign strategy is concerned, a debate or no debate was not going to take away or add to their electoral capital but now, for whatever reason, they have realised that a debate is necessary if they are supposed to make any further gain so far as their campaign is concerned…” he said.