Former President John Dramani Mahama’s acceptance of Ford Escape as a gift from a Burkinabe contractor, Djibril Kanazoe, slayed the former president’s dream of ruling Ghana for another 4-years, Kevin Ekow Baidoo Taylor, has said.

According to him, Manasseh Azure Awuni's investigations into the Ford saga made Mahama a laughingstock in the sight of his political opponents in the run-up to the 2016 general elections.

“This Azure guy that they’ve made homeless who only finds solace in writing anything on Facebook brought up the Ford saga to kill Mahama’s dreams. We were all in Ghana, laughed at the guy [President] even after his explanations we still told him he’s a Northerner,” Kevin Taylor said on his radio programme, ‘With All Due Respect’ recently.

He added that the opponents of John Mahama were alleging that he has been sleeping with all the beautiful girls in the country. “Every woman you will see…Mahama ‘chop am’…this guy was ridiculed to the core.”

The NPP sympathizer said his party folks cannot make an informed argument without mentioning the name of John Mahama.

“We made him understand that even in Ghana, he’s a Northerner and has no right to lead us. This Northerner was able to build one or two hospitals for the country,” he said.



Background

Earlier in 2016, President Mahama came under intense public criticism for accepting the Ford gift worth about US$100,000 allegedly to influence him when he was Vice President in 2012.

The Burkinabe contractor in question, Djibril Kanazoe, admitted giving President Mahama the Ford Expedition vehicle, for which the President called to thank him.

The gift, according to reports, was prior to an attempt by the contractor, to win a bid for execute the Dodo Pepeso-Nkwanta road construction project.

The same contractor had also been contracted to build a wall at a cost of over half a million dollars for the Ghanaian Embassy in Ouagadougou.

CHRAJ, following its investigation of the matter, stated that President Mahama breached the gift policy when he accepted the car gift.

The Commission, however, stated that the President’s action did not constitute a conflict of interest, bribery or fraud, as the petitioners, the youth wing of the Convention People’s Party (CPP), and the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), had claimed.