![John Mahama sad](https://i0.wp.com/www.asaaseradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/John-Mahama-sad.jpg?resize=600%2C452&ssl=1)
The Western Regional secretary of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Charles Bissue, has advised the former president John Mahama to retract and apologise for āincitingā Ghanaians ahead of the 2024 elections.
The defeated presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2020 elections has been randomly condemned by Ghanaians for saying Election 2024 will be a ādo or dieā affair at the polling stations.
āThe election will be won or lost at the polling station, so at the polling station it will be ādo or dieā. I did not say āAll die be dieā, I said it will be do or die, because the right thing must be done,ā Mahama said on Tuesday, provoking many reactions calling on him to retract.
However, Bissue said such comment should not be coming from a statesman who āhas been at the helm of our political affairs before.ā
Describing Mahamaās comment as ārecklessā, Bissue said: “He needs to come back and apologise to Ghanaians. If he hadnāt been a former president then he would be forgiven.”
“But heās been at the helm of our political affairs before and you now see his people associating it with the coup that happened in Guinea. Itās not right for him to say that. Whatever he says carries weight,ā Bissue said on The Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday 10 September 2021.
Speaking on the same show, Justice Abdulai, a Private legal practitioner and law lecturer, UPSA concurred with Bissue, adding āitās an insult to the sensibilities of Ghanaians.ā
“Itās the most reckless comment Iāve ever heard coming from the former president, John Mahama. All the other comments and attempts by his party executives make it even more laughable. I think the former president should rethink his decision and calling it an idiomatic expression.
“He should retract and apologise to all Ghanaians. We understand exactly what it means. He should admit that what he said was wrong, the further explanation rather makes matters worse for all of us. We should not at this point of our lives be pushing for such reckless comments. We should be making developmental comments,ā he said.
“I won’t apologise”
Meanwhile, Mahama has said that, despite the huge public backlash, he still stands byĀ his commentĀ that Election 2024 will be a ādo-or-dieā affair at the polling station.
āā¦ They donāt understand ādo or dieā. āDo or dieā is an English idiom,ā Mahama explained. āIn Africa, we have many proverbs and we sometimes donāt say things in the straight format: we use proverbs. In English, we have idiomatic expressions.
āThose who left school early donāt understand idiomatic expressions. āDo or dieā means a critical assignment you have, and so you must do the needful or perish.ā
He added: āWhat I mean is that the NDC should not wait and go back to the Supreme Court. Whatever has to be done at the polling stations and collation centres must be done. And so I donāt retract: the next election for NDC is going to be a do-or-die affair.
āIām telling all our party executives that you must be at the polling station to make sure that the right thing is done.
āDonāt abdicate your responsibility at that level and expect that after somebody has stolen the election weāll go to Supreme Court to see if they would turn the election for us, they wonāt do it.ā
Asaase Radio 99.5Ā ā tune in or log on to broadcastsĀ online
99.5 in Accra, 90.7 in Ho, 98.5 in Kumasi, 99.7 in Tamale, 89.5 in Tarkwa and 106.9 in Walewale
Follow us on Twitter: @asaaseradio995
#AsaaseRadio