Sycophants inventing enemies for Mahama with ‘childish' 2024 flag bearer clamour – Kunbuor

Sycophants within the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) are “inventing enemies” for former president John Dramani Mahama through their public clamour for his automatic selection as flag bearer for the 2024 polls, former Defence Minister Dr Benjamin Kunbuor has said.

“You see, that is the problem of lack of scientific analyses”, he observed, explaining: “John Mahama is an individual and just look at the logic: most of these people just do not understand what they are saying. Yesterday, people raised legitimate concerns [that] the NDC does not belong to Rawlings and I agree with them and have always said that an individual cannot own and control the party. What are you talking about today? Since when has that narrative changed?”

The former Nandom MP said Mr Mahama although a leading and formidable person in the party does that mean that he accepts to be in control of the party.

“I don’t believe that is the way he thinks and people should not be in a hurry to invent enemies for John Mahama and that is exactly what I’m saying and I don’t know the motivation for people to sandbag John Mahama in that way”, Dr Kunbuor wondered.

In his view, the clamour for the former president is childish, uninformed and unscientific.

“What I know is that John Mahama has his style of engaging this issue. I have my style which might be different. Other leading members of the part have their style. If I were in John Mahama’s position and I have seen bits of it with Jerry John Rawlings; when you start behaving in this sycophantic manner, giving the impression that you are the one on whose health and breath John Mahama is surviving politically; many people will not take that”, he warned.

According to him, the party is better off focusing on fixing its internal challenges before even thinking of the next flag bearer.

“What we should be talking about today in terms of what you see in the media is: ‘who should be the flag bearer’, ‘who should not be the flag bearer’. Those are the anglings enabled. And I said: ‘No, you’re putting the cart before the horse’. It’s on most of the party platforms: ‘You need to deal with this and A should be the flag bearer and B should not be the flag bearer and A should be the flag bearer’ and I say that conversation is not opportune, it is irrelevant, it’s an invention of a problem onto the party, which they might not have immediate answers to but the issue of who becomes the flag bearer is contingent on a number of very specific issues which need to be addressed so that any flag bearer’s position becomes relevant”. he emphasized.

Dr Kunbuor, who spoke on Joy News, said: “I can give you a number of scenarios. For instance, who has raised a question about a possible contest for a flag bearer? Nobody. So, why is it important and why are you thinking that you are helping anybody beyond sycophancy of saying that A must automatically be the flag bearer? Why do you jump when no one has pushed you? you’ll get to the flag bearer contest and there might be no contest. So, why do you invent a problem of which the party structures have a mechanism for resolving?”