The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has observed that former President John Mahama has been struggling to explain himself after making his “do or die” comment in reference to the 2024 general elections.

At a press conference on Friday, 10 September 2021, General Secretary of the NPP, Mr John Boadu, said: “Let me share a few words on the ‘do or die’ comment of perpetual candidate Mahama”.

“It is a distasteful comment that does not belong in our fast-maturing electoral democracy”, he condemned.

“We note that John Mahama stubbornly refuses to retract”, he said, adding: “Rather, he is seeking refuge in semantics and grammar, struggling to explain the impossible”.

However, Mr Boadu noted, “we are not surprised”.

“Being in opposition and desperate to comeback to power, John Mahama must be panicking at the pace at which the Akufo-Addo government is moving”, he noted.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo “continues to commission completed projects and initiate new ones on his working tours of the country”.

“Everywhere the President goes, there is fervent support for his policies which are visibly changing lives”, he said.

“Infrastructure is springing up fast in the new regions. One hundred and six 1D1F factories are working full blast with many more in the pipeline. The Presidents’ sterling management of Covid-19 has opened the space for former President Mahama to move around easily. Growth is moving in the right direction”, Mr Boadu noted.

“We are the destination for the highest FDI inflows in West Africa. Agenda 111 has been launched with strong prospects to change the health sector to another level. In confirmation of these works, the IMF has granted Ghana one billion dollars in Special Drawing Rights without any conditionalities whatsoever”.

“No wonder former President Mahama is desperate. He has no blueprint to match the progress he is seeing. He has no alternative for Ghanaians”.

“Indeed, if he had something of substance to sell, he would not resort to the language of ‘do or die’. ‘Do or die’ at polling stations depends on the preparedness of the party”.

The NDCs’ history, he noted, “shows they have never truly been prepared at polling stations. They have not been able to design and implement an architecture that can deliver results at polling station to enable them inform themselves”.

In 2016, he said, “when they told the world they were in a comfortable lead, they had no inkling of the direction of the results. Again, in 2020, when they lost, they again told the world they had won and proceeded to the Supreme Court without a shred of evidence to back their claims”.

“On the contrary, the NPP can tell within six hours, the results of a national election. Because we are serious about governance. John Mahama’s lack of electoral preparedness, which he blames on everybody but himself, stems from his own admission of indecisiveness as a leader”.

“His own observations about his lack of decisiveness in his infamous autobiography reflect where he is now”.

“This is a man who has been MP, Deputy Minister, Minister, Vice-President, President and losing presidential candidate. He is the greatest beneficiary of high-profile positions within the National Democratic Congress (NDC). Yet, he still does not realise and appreciate that leadership is about service. He cannot understand that leadership is about vision. He does not know that leadership is about hope”. 

“We will not expend precious hours persuading him of the error of his ways. John Mahama’s deeds and utterances will continue to expose the incompetence and desperation again and again”.

“John Mahama’s deeds and utterances will continue to expose him again and again as the indecisive and visionless person he confessed to be, simply incapable of leading this cherished democracy that Ghana is carefully building”.

“Incompetent and desperate John Mahama should be given no space to come to corridors of power. The best way forward for Ghana is the NPP way, and has always been the NPP way”.