John Mahama shouldn't vote for himself - Otiko Djaba

The National Women’s Organizer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Otiko Afisah Chrissie Djaba, has indicated that due to the political background of President John Mahama, it will be ethically wrong for him to vote for himself as flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress, “because of what happened to his [Mahama] father.”

President Mahama’s father, Emmanuel A. Mahama who was a Minister in the Kwame Nkrumah government (1957-1966), was detained for a year, then banned from holding any political appointment for 10 years by the new military rulers, the National Liberation Council (NLC).

Subsequently, President Mahama’s father spent several years in exile in Ivory Coast, Nigeria and London away from the dictatorship of Flt Lt. John Jerry Rawlings (1982-1992).

Ms Djaba questioned why the President was a member of the National Democratic Congress “because the same thing happened to his father. He had to flee across the border to Nigeria and suffer and to go to London and suffer under the father of the NDC; the PNDC [Provisional National Defence Council] of which John is now the NDC Presidential candidate.”

Speaking on the Citi Fm on Wednesday, she revealed that although she is related to President Mahama, “it will be highly treasonable and Haram on my part to go and campaign for John. I will never vote.”

She indicated that being family “does not mean that politically or in terms of religion, we are the same. He is Assemblies of God and I am Presbyterian. I might like TZ he might like fufu….and so we cannot all from Bole endorse John Mahama as the Chief of Bole did.”

“I come from Bole Bamboi. I contested on the ticket of the NPP in 2008 when John [President Mahama] was the last MP. I could have gone to the NDC. I didn’t! He was my cousin and he will always be my cousin. His father, E.A Mahama in a sense is my grandfather. E. A. Mahama and my mother’s father are brothers,” she revealed.

According to Ms Djaba, her decision to join the NPP was to enable her “follow the course of development in freedom because 'my father is Henry Kojo Djaba. He was the person who had to flee for his life in exile.' By now I could be a doctor too but for that exile, because everything that my father had, was taken away."

"Those life experiences that I had to go through; cleaning toilets, sweeping and working hard to be able to go back to school are things that have impacted on my life.”