Voicing the displeasure caused by the “incompetent” tag slapped on his government by then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Former President John Dramani Mahama, has revealed on several counts how much he disliked being tagged “incompetent”.

In the run-up to the 2016 polls, then Vice Presidential Candidate Dr Mahamudu Bawumia of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) held series of public lectures on the gloomy state of the Ghanaian economy, blaming the economic woes on the incompetence of the government at the time.

Dr. Bawumia repeated the “incompetent” tag on several campaign platforms as well as rallies which was said to have pained then President John Mahama.

Indeed after losing the 2016 poll, the Former President admitted the negative toll “incompetent” tag had on his re-election bid to the extent even members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) believed he was indeed incompetent.


But addressing members of the NDC in Wa in the Upper West region on Saturday, the former Head of State may have subtly admitted to "competence" as being the weakness of the NDC on which the NPP rode into power.

According to Mr. Mahama, even though the NPP appears ‘super-incompetent’ in government now, it’s important the umbrella family work hard to win the 2020 elections but not on the weakness of the NPP.


“You do not win an election on the weakness of your opponent. You win an election because the electorate have confidence in you. And so even though NPP is proving super incompetent, we cannot sit and relax and say because they are super incompetent we are going to win the next election. So we are going to work hard to win.


“I have been watching social media lately, and there’s something that has come, and I think it cures everything. It’s the Obinim sticker, the President and his government need an Obinim sticker. If it really works, then I think they need the sticker. So I am saying that we cannot depend on their incompetence, we need to work hard to gain the support of the electorate,” Mahama said.
Mr. Mahama said the ruling New Patriotic Party has failed and could be felt in the “unbearable hardship” being experienced by Ghanaians.




“People are feeling more hardship than ever today,” the immediate past president told the NDC gathering after the walk.


He added: “People said any idiot can borrow and that there is money in Ghana and that we can develop Ghana without borrowing but in one year and three months we have borrowed close to 30 billion Ghana cedis.”