President John Dramani Mahama has led a “despicable team of young people” who have not done justice to Ghana, a former rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Professor Stephen Adei, has said.

According to him, if late President John Atta Mills had not been sick and had completed his eight years in office, Ghana would have progressed but “there have been serious setbacks”.

Speaking on the Executive Breakfast Show (EBS) on Class91.3FM on Wednesday, September 21 – Founder’s Day – Professor Adei accused President Mahama of surrounding himself with incompetent people.

“Honestly I believe that President Mahama has not been very good to us in the sense that even within the NDC, he has not used the capable people… He has used basically incompetent people, young people whose only turf is just insulting… I say that 50 per cent of Ghanaians are NDC and, therefore, there are capable people in NDC. He should not rule with this bunch of incompetent young people… And to me it pains me and I hold [President] Mahama responsible because he has all these people who are competent and he has not used them,” he told show host Prince Minkah.

Talking about the way forward, Professor Adei said Ghana has good alternatives in both Nana Akufo-Addo and Dr Papa Kwesi Nduom, flag bearers of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), respectively.

“I think as usual we have two alternatives. I hope that Mahama has learnt his lessons in that should he win [the December election], he would do better, but I have no doubt that people like Papa Kwesi Nduom and Nana Akufo-Addo if Mahama loses, will provide a much better alternative for Ghana. For me, I hope that Mahama’s second term will be better. If he hasn’t learnt from what has happened, then may God help us, but then I think that the alternatives are good and I have no doubt at all of the capacity of Nduom or of Nana Akufo-Addo to provide superior leadership for Ghana.”