Nana Akufo-Addo is “not suffering from cancer” and the New Patriotic Party (NPP) is not “bothered” if the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) keeps paying “surrogates” to wage a “smear campaign” against the three-time flag bearer of Ghana’s biggest opposition party, the NPP’s Campaign Coordinator, Mr Peter Mac Manu, has said.

Mr Mac Manu’s comments follow a publication by the Africa Watch Magazine which said Mr Akufo-Addo was suffering from cancer.

Mr Akufo-Addo himself, while speaking to the Bolgatanga Traditional Council in the Upper East Region on Sunday, August 28 during his campaign, told the crowd that the NDC and President John Mahama were fabricating lies about him in their quest to retain the presidency in the 7 December polls.

“First, they said I was a drug addict; it didn’t work. They said I was sick; it didn’t work. They said I was too old; it didn’t work. They said I was a hunchback; it didn’t work. They said I was a dwarf; it didn’t work. They said I was in a wheelchair; it didn’t work. They said I am a murderer; it didn’t work. They said I would die in June; it didn’t work. They said I was a dictator; it didn’t work. They said I was intolerant; it didn’t work. They said I was violent; it didn’t work. They said I had a secret agenda to destabilise the country; it didn’t work. Now, they say I have cancer, it will not work.”

Mr Akufo-Addo stressed further that “it appears the only way the President will get a third term is when I am sick or I am dead. That is the only ground on which he will get his third term.”

Buttressing Mr Akufo-Addo’s comment, Mr Mac Manu told Naa Dedei Tettey in an interview on 12Live on Class91.3FM that “this is a campaign of political destruction” which incumbent parties employ “when an incumbent government is losing an election in Africa.”

“…I’ve seen it in Nigerian where they painted all kinds of gloomy picture about Buhari: Buhari is dead, Buhari has cancer, Buhari is on a sick bed; the same things they are saying about Nana Akufo-Addo [now]. I want to tell them, NDC, that whatever they learnt from President Jonathan which didn’t work there, they should drop it because it is not going to work in Ghana … Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is not sick of any cancer. …They want to throw mud at Nana Akufo-Addo, they want to distract us from the key issues and the key government matters. … This campaign is about the eight-year rule of the NDC … it is a referendum of the eight-year rule of the NDC,” Mr Mac Manu added.

“…It’s false and if the NDC will pay people to spread false news as was in Nigeria in the case of Buhari, fine; they can, but the Ghanaian voters are discerning like their counterparts in Nigeria, and history is going to repeat itself here. …We are not bothered…”