President John Mahama is surely reeling under the sloppy performance of his NDC administration in the
run-up to the December 7 polls. In that dire situation, candidate John Mahama is adopting such unorthodox
campaign guises, albeit very dangerous to the peace of the country to cover-up for his government’s close to
four years of broken economy, poor infrastructure, poor quality healthcare system and many other failed
promises.
The President has within the last two-weeks stirred rather dangerously, nerve-wrecking ethnocentric tirades
in Northern Ghana urging Northerners to vote for him because he (President) is one of them. He told
Northerners that since 1979 when former President Limann assumed the reins of power, no Northerner has
come close to that position except occupying the vice-presidential position.
He even teased that if the NPP wants to win this year’s election then that party should swap Nana Akufo-
Addo’s position as the presidential candidate of the NPP with that of Dr. Mahmudu Bawumia, the NPP’s
Vice-Presidential candidate.
His running mate, Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah Arthur, was also in the Central Region recently urging people
of the region to vote for him and the NDC because he hails from the region. Amissah Arthur even suggested
that people from the Central Region should vote for him and President Mahama as a solidarity tribute to the
late President John Evans Atta Mills, who hailed from the Region.
The ethnic tirades by the President and his Vice are not only embarrassingly but also irresponsible and
dangerous, especially coming from leaders who are supposed to be rulers over the entire country and not just
sections of it.
Perhaps the President and his advisers like Amissah-Arthur and Johnson Asiedu Nketia, the NDC General
Secretary, are not thinking about how such childish effusions have the potential of detaching them from the
other ethnic groups in the country to also lean towards their own.
Clearly the President is asking others to think parochially about how best they can also support their
tribesmen/women to ascend the highest office without necessarily thinking about the competence and
inclusiveness that such candidates bring to bear on the body-politic.
We thank God that the Ghanaian is such a discerning voter that she/he will not condescend so low to accede
to such ethnocentric preaching of a desperate President who by his position is supposed to be a unifier rather
than the divisive tendencies he is bringing into our politics.
Voting patterns over the years have clearly shown how the Ghanaian is judiciously decisive in selecting or
voting for any person of their choice without resorting to any ethnic consideration. Indeed, that explains why
all presidents that who have won elections for the last 20 years needed votes from all parts of the country to
realize their dream.
That is why Dr. Papa Kwesi Nduom has never gone to his home region-the Central Region, to tell the good
people there to vote for him because he is from that part of the country. We are aware that people or voters in
Central Region are rooting for Dr. Nduom not because he is from the region but the fact that he has impacted
positively on thousands of lives of many from the Central Region by providing them with realistic jobs.
Dr Nduom is on record as telling people on his campaign tour that no matter where one comes from or lives,
the PPP welcomes everyone and assured that all tribes and areas would be treated in the same way and that
never will the PPP administration treat people according to where they hail from or inspire people to vote for
him because he comes from a particular area.
That is a mark of a great leader and we believe Ghanaians will again be inspired by this broader
consideration and the higher stakes in this year’s election-one of which is mainly the poor state of their
livelihood - to choose the candidate with the right and realistic solutions to their problems.
Richmond Keelson,
Communications Director.
