I've never lied to Ghanaians for power; always told truth – Mahama

Former President John Mahama has said unlike the New Patriotic Party and the Akufo-Addo government who lied their way into power with lofty promises, he has always been truthful with the people of Ghana and never told them a lie for the sake of winning power.

Speaking to delegates of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Wa Central Constituency of the Upper West Region, as he campaigns for the flag bearer slot of his party, Mr Mahama told the gathering at the Wa Campus of the University for Development Studies that it is not in his nature to hoodwink Ghanaians with promises just so he can win power.

He said “after the elections, we all would have asked God: ‘God why did You let us lose after all the work we did?’ We did a good job for the people of Ghana – we did water, we did electricity, we did infrastructure, we stabilised the economy, we solved the energy crisis; ‘why did we lose?’ we were asking ourselves.

“But I’ve said that upon reflection, all of us know that God had a plan. And whatever God does, we say: Thank You to Him. Because today I look back and I don’t feel as sad that we lost the election because it gives Ghanaians an opportunity to make a comparison between us and our opponent, and it teaches us a lesson in the politics of Ghana that you can lie your way to power but you cannot use lies to govern and management the country.

“Because for us, we have always told the truth, we haven’t lied to the people of Ghana and said we would do something we can’t do.

“If we come and tell you that: ‘Look, we are going to do this road, then we know that we can do the road and truly when we come, we do the road; if we say we’ll build a hospital for you, when we come, we build the hospital; if we say we’ll give you a school or we’ll extend electricity or we’ll give you water, when we come, we deliver on those promises’.

“But there are some people: He says it doesn’t matter what promises you make, you promise everything just to get political power, but the point is: You forget that when you get the political power, you cannot use those promises and lies to govern the country.

“Apparently there was another promise that each child in school will get one chocolate a day, do you remember? There’s was another promise that they’ll give each child one egg a day, do you remember? I mean why? Why do you do this to yourself?” Mr Mahama wondered.