Mahama was ungrateful to Rawlings – Ex-NDC Executive

A former executive of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the Tema East constituency branch of the party, Stephen Ashitey Adjei, has branded the NDC’s flagbearer for the 2024 elections as betraying the course of the NDC when he bit the very hand that fed him.

Moshake, as he is affectionately called, insisted that former President John Mahama let the rank and file of the party down when he antagonized the NDC’s late founder, former president Jerry John Rawlings.

“Rawlings is the one who made Mahama who he has become in politics and governance; he took him from a modest personality and molded him into a charismatic public figure and in return, what John Mahama did was pay Rawlings back with betrayal,” Moshake wrote in a statement.

The estrangement of Rawlings from the NDC, due to Mahama’s actions, contributed significantly to the NDC losing a lot of its original appeal, Moshake wrote, adding that because of this, Mahama is the one to be blamed for the split state of the NDC.

“The NDC’s undoing, from the estrangement of its founder to the falling-out of its leading members, to the loss of our appeal to the masses is all because of John Mahama,” he wrote.

Giving a background, Moshake said Mr. Mahama’s late father, Emmanuel Adama Mahama, had served in the first republican government of President Kwame Nkrumah as the Minister of State for the Northern region.

The older Mahama had also been the first Member of Parliament for Gonja East, Moshake wrote.

“After the overthrow of Nkrumah in the 1966 coup, the second republican government under Dr. Busia had moved to arrest former Nkrumah appointees, including John Mahama’s father, for corruption.

“This prompted John Mahama to flee the country to Nigeria for refuge, and there he remained until Rawlings shepherded the country back to the democratic route in 1992. Rawlings would go on to invite Mahama back to represent the NDC as Parliamentary candidate for Bole Bamboi,” Moshake wrote.

According to him, after John Mahama had shown loyalty in Parliament, and later became president, he started romancing with former president Kufuor.

According to him, one time, Rawlings went to the house of John Mahama, who had just become president after Mills’ death in office to confer with him over a matter, “Kufuor happened to be there with Mahama and so Mahama refused to see Rawlings, after making him sit and wait for so long. This is how Rawlings became unhappy with Mahama’s government and eventually became estranged from his own party, the NDC.”