Veep Should Be Ashamed Of Himself – Nana Akomea

NPP Member of Parliament for Okaikoi South, Nana Akomea says Vice President John Dramani Mahama needs to be ashamed of himself for describing moves by the Minority in Parliament to prevent the amendment of the Petroleum Revenue Management Bill as “foolish and baloney”.

Speaking on CitiFm’s Eyewitness News, Nana Akomea said the vice president’s language was terribly unfortunate and atypical of him, and opines that Mr. Mahama probably made those remarks because of the extreme pressure being exerted on him by members of his own party, the NDC.

“I know that if John Mahama himself reflects on what he said, he himself will be terribly ashamed of the remarks that he made. The remarks that he made are terribly unfortunate and quite atypical of the vice president, I don’t know if the pressures that are coming unto him from his own party has conditioned his mind to speak the way that he did,” he said.

The NPP MP said the Second Gentleman’s choice of words does not help in efforts at building consensus on matters of national concern.

“Just look at the situation, the government itself has brought a bill to parliament and before it got to parliament, it had received approval from cabinet of which the vice president is a member…Parliament is now deliberating on it so if you have changed your mind on the bill, instead of convincing the other stakeholders, you go on to insult the other stakeholders, especially the NPP, because the NPP has not changed their minds like you,” he added.

The former Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment in the erstwhile Kufuor administration chastised Mr. Mahama for his choice of descriptive words of the opposition, when, according to him, the Vice President, a few minutes earlier, had raised concern over rising insults on his person and the Mills’-led administration.

“You brought the bill yourself so if you want to change anything, should you be behaving in a hellish, baloney or foolish manner? If you want to have a consensus with the major stakeholders, do you achieve that by insulting them? Mind you it is not only the NPP that is expressing reservation about what the government wants but civil society is worried, the TUC and even Christian Council have also come out."

"…What makes the remarks unfortunate is that John Mahama in some few hours earlier was talking about insults rained on his person by people from his own party…as greedy bastards and Team B and he wasn’t happy about that because they were insults and personal attack. And in the next minute, he goes ahead to use words like ‘what the hell’, ‘baloney’ and ‘foolish’ on the same platform,” he added.