Akufo-Addo ‘divisive, intolerant’ - NDC

The Government has said recent jabs by President John Mahama at the flag bearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, are truths rather than attacks on his personality.

President John Mahama has been criticised by the NPP for making Mr Akufo-Addo the subject of his campaign. The NPP says Mr Mahama is targeting the personality of Mr Akufo-Addo because he (Mr Mahama) has no message to convince the electorate to retain him in office.

Mr Mahama, while addressing National Democratic Congress (NDC) supporters in the Northern Region on Tuesday August 24, described Nana Akufo-Addo as a divisive leader who was going round begging to be elected as president in the December 7 polls. Mr Mahama told the electorate to reject the NPP flag bearer because the presidency was not for experimenters.

He said: “...It is a very dangerous experiment. Ghana is not at the stage where we are experimenting leadership, and so you cannot come and beg that we should try you. We are not in the era of experiments and trials; we are in the era of what is sure. We have seen this government; one of the major successes of this government is peace and stability. What we need in Ghana is an understanding president. The era of dictatorship is gone: we are not looking for a dictator, somebody who cannot stand criticism in his own party. If you criticise him, he will sack you. … That is not the kind of leader we are looking for. We are looking for a leader who can bring people together.”

“We are looking for a leader who can unite Ghana and not a leader who will divide Ghana. If you cannot unite your own party, how do you unite a nation?" he questioned.

Speaking to the issue, Mr Felix Kwakye Ofosu, a deputy minister of communications, told Emefa Apawu, on Class FM’s ‘505’ news programme on Wednesday August 24 that: “I am not sure when telling the truth of an opponent became an attack. The truth is that Nana Addo is an extremely divisive and intolerant political figure and the evidence of it is glaring. …Between 2014 and late 2015 and even the early part of this year, the New Patriotic Party kept the Ghana Police Service busier than the most hardened criminals in this country [have].”

“At the last count, the Police Service of Ghana had to rush to the NPP’s headquarters eleven times in order to forestall loss of lives. On a number of occasions, lives have been lost because of the divisions that Nana Addo has supervised in the NPP. For the very first time in the history of intra-party politics in Ghana, two people have lost their lives, the Upper East regional chairman of the NPP was doused in acid, …a supporter of the NPP was brutally stabbed and he died at Asawase because of intraparty violence.”