Mahama accuses NPP of ‘Yentie Obiaa’ syndrome

Former President John Dramani Mahama has suggested that the incumbent government seems to have grown deaf ears to pieces of advice over some of the decisions it is taking.

He had only one statement for the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo-led government: “A word to a wise is enough”.

Mr Mahama expressed these sentiments on Saturday at the Silver jubilee durbar of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) held at Mandela Park at Ashaiman in the Greater Accra Region.

Speaking in Twi, though interspersed with English, former President Mahama said the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) government is setting a “bad precedent” by sacking all public sector workers hired during the regime of the NDC.

He contends that most of these workers have gone through due process supervised by the Public Service Commission and it is wrong to relieve them of their posts. Mr Mahama, who ruled Ghana between 2012 and 2017, said every government potentially has only four years to rule, so the tendency to sack workers every four years must stop. “When you say, they won’t hear,” he said in Twi.

‘Incompetent Mahama’

He said Ghanaians are beginning to realize the difference between his government and the current one especially as the NPP have started blaming the state of the economy for some of their failings.

He said when he told them about the state of the economy as president and an insider, they said he was incompetent. He referred to a recent statement by the president that graduate unemployment is as a result of the university curriculum, saying he had mentioned it before while in power.

“I thought [Nana Akufo-Addo] said it is because of Mahama’s incompetence,” he recalled. “He even said there is money,” he said, mentioning how current Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia paraded himself as knowing everything about the economy. But now, he said, they are blaming the economy.

Tragedy of Unlived Experience’

Former President Mahama expressed content with having lost the 2016 elections, saying it may be by divine providence.

Referencing the Tragedy of the Unlived Experience in history lessons, the immediate past NDC leader said if he had won, every mistake would have been strongly criticized by Ghanaians and they would have said Nana Addo would do better and turn Ghana into Heaven. So, God said let’s test another person too, he said.

He called for unity within the NDC, saying that is the only means it can win power in 2020. He paid tribute to the founder fathers of the party especially Jerry John Rawlings, who founded the party and led it to its maiden electoral victory in 1993.