NDC should have sacked Mahama - Tema MCE

The Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive, Yohane Amarh Ashitey, has said the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) has kept itself trapped in non-progress because it refused to do a needful thing it ought to have done a long time ago.

In an interview with journalists on a wide range of issues on Wednesday, the Tema MCE said the opposition party should have rid itself of its current presidential candidate a long time ago.

"For someone who sidelined the founder of the party, what should have happened to John Mahama was a boot out long ago," he said.

The MCE's comment was in response to a declaration by a former executive of the Tema East constituency branch of the NDC that Mr Mahama turned his back on NDC's founder, the late former President Jerry John Rawlings, after he (Rawlings) adopted him from exile and made him the public figure that he is today.

According to Stephen Ashitey Adjei, alias Moshake, Mr John Mahama had relocated following the overthrow of Ghana's first president, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah.

This was because John Mahama's father, Emmanuel Adama Mahama, had served in the Nkrumah government and had, therefore, been targeted by the new regime.

But after Rawlings had returned the country to democratic governance in 1992, he invited John Mahama from Nigeria to be the parliamentary candidate for the NDC at Bole Bamboi and from there, Mahama went through the mill and became the charismatic presidential material that he became.

However, according to Moshake, after Mahama became president, he allegedly pitched camp with Rawlings' arch-nemesis, former President John Agyekum Kufuor, and ignored Rawlings, leading to the fury and estrangement of Rawlings from the Mahama government, and later, the NDC.

According to the MCE, John Mahama would have been sacked long ago if he had been in the NPP.

"And that is what the NDC should have done, they should have sacked John Mahama a long time ago," Yohane Amarh Ashitey added.