Mahama should resist the temptation to become ‘Mugabe flagbearer’ of NDC - Moshake

An Executive Member of the Tema East Constituency branch of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Stephen Ashitey Adjei, has responded to reports that former President John Dramani Mahama will contest for the 2024 Presidential ticket of the party.

In a statement copied to the media, Mr. Ashitey Adjei, who is popularly called Moshake, said the former President’s outlook is unfair to the NDC.

“NDC is effectively becoming like the private playground for one person which is very unfair because the party is a congress and therefore is the convergence point for many great talents who equally are entitled to the opportunity to use it as stepping stone to the leadership of our country,” Moshake wrote.

A man with a reputation for plain-talking, Moshake urged the former President to, “realize that he is becoming a “Mugabe Flagbearer” of the NDC with his recycled leadership of the party for the past decade.”

Vibes from Mr. Mahama’s camp that he will run again have started featuring in newspaper articles and other news media. If the former President runs for the 2024 flagbearership of the NDC, it will be his third time after losing the Presidency to Akufo-Addo in 2016.



It will also be his fourth flagbearership of the NDC, overall.

“A one-man flagbearer mark-time is not what the NDC was envisioned to be, my advice to my former President is that this chapter of his life has closed and he should be willing to let go. After all, it is God who gives and also takes. Former President Mahama will not lose anything if he bows out now and leave the scene for others to inherit the baton of leadership of our great party,” Moshake wrote.

He pointed out that, “as a former President, he will continue to receive his salary until he dies; he has already had his eight years at the Presidency, having been like former President Mills who similarly was Vice President and later, President. Nobody can mock President Mahama as a one-term President because he is not; he is also a former Vice President, and so why the insistence on becoming President again?”

According to the popular NDC man, the 2020 defeat at the hands of President Akufo-Addo is not something that Mr. Mahama should cry over because “not even President Rawlings would have found it easy to swim against the winsome tide of Free SHS.”

He added that “this is why some of us had advised and campaigned for the former President to forget about 2020 and allow someone else to assume the mantle so that if even that new Flagbearer had not been successful, the 2020 campaigns would have marketed him and now we would be readying to take over government again in 2024, but nobody listened; in fact, some of us were targeted for speaking the bitter truth.

“Now as things stand, if even we present former President Mahama and he wins in 2024, he will only have one more term and then what; start marketing his successor? Somebody should please tell the former President that the time has come for him to make way and allow someone else to assume the mantle. It is time for Mr. John Mahama to become the wise elder who sits back and gives advice,” Moshake wrote.

He added that if the former President insists and, “goes on to become a Mugabe Flagbearer for NDC in 2024, it will be a clear sign that he never really has the NDC at heart. It will be a reminder of all the unfair things that the NDC has suffered in his hands; like when his family announced he would not run again after the 2016 election, only for him to turn round and saddle the NDC with himself, leading to a very acrimonious presidential primary that led to a fractured campaign team front for the 2020 elections.”

Moshake also listed the neglect of the party members during his Presidency and the poor management of the Founder, Jerry Rawlings as some of the “sins” of John Mahama.

“How do you tell citizens you are governing that you have become a dead goat; how do you withdraw allowances of teachers and nursing trainees, how do you so mismanage Martin Amidu that he becomes a very powerful tool and an asset to our opponents the NPP? We suffered all of these and many more under you!

“However I am willing to forgive all that and put the past behind me if Mr. Mahama will resist the temptation to become the NDC’s Mugabe Flagbearer, and I believe many others in the party will be willing to forgive as well,” Moshake wrote.