The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo believes the flagbearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramami Mahama is engaging in a campaign of deception in the build-up to the 2020 polls.
President Akufo-Addo insists Mr. Mahama is telling “lies” to hoodwink Ghanaians into voting him back into power.
According to Akufo-Addo Ghanaians are smarter enough to know the true character of Mr. Mahama.
President Akufo-Addo was responding to claims by Mr. Mahama that he introduced the free SHS in 2015 when he made those statements.
Mr. Mahama during his tour of the Upper East Region insisted that he started the free SHS policy before President Akufo-Addo and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) took over.
“I assure you, my countrymen, that within one year, I will cancel the double-track system,” Mahama said.
“We started the programme and the NPP came and continued it. Unfortunately, the implementation has been very poor, and so it ended us in double track,” Mr Mahama stressed.
But according to President Akufo-Addo, when he promised free SHS in the run-up to the 2008, 2012 and 2016 campaigns, “they (John Mahama and the NDC) said that I was deceiving Ghanaians, and that it was a vote-buying gimmick and that even if it will be possible, it would take about 20 years”.
He continued, “Not long ago, he said that if he had GH¢2 billion, he wouldn’t use it to pay school fees, but rather he would use it on something profitable. Today, he says that he (Mahama) introduced Free SHS. Are we going to allow the former president to come back to power through lies and deception?”
The President added that the “lies from the NDC presidential candidate are borne out of one thing, and that is his campaign is failing to catch up with the electorate. He has seen that his campaign is collapsing in confusion, fabrications and now [he is spewing] outright lies.”
President Akufo-Addo made these comments on the last day of his tour of the Greater Accra Region on Wednesday, November 25, 2020.
