President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has expressed his hopes that the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) presidential candidate, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, will avoid joining the ranks of “one-term presidents,” a comment seemingly directed at former President John Dramani Mahama’s recent refusal to debate Bawumia.
Mahama has on several occasions declined to engage Bawumia in a debate, suggesting it would be “stooping low” to debate the NPP flagbearer.
Akufo-Addo criticized this stance, dismissing Mahama’s reasoning as “groundless,” and noted that Mahama is uniquely positioned as a “one-term president” among Ghana’s recent leaders.
“I have heard Mahama say that he is not ready to debate Bawumia today or tomorrow because Bawumia is not in his class. I can’t see the status of the class where Mahama finds himself, which makes it impossible for Bawumia to debate him.
“The only class I know Mahama finds himself is that…since we entered the fourth republic in 1993, Ghana voted for five people to be president. Unfortunately, one of the five is late; Prof John Atta Mills. Now, out of the remaining four Ghanaians voted for one of them because he performed poorly when he was in government, he was voted out.
“So, if Mahama is claiming to have a class, then it is that class of one and in that class, he is in there alone. I don’t think that is the kind of class I would want Bawumia to be in.”
The President added that if Dr Bawumia were to succeed him, his expectation was for Bawumia to secure a second term
“God willing, when Bawumia becomes president on January 7, he will be voted for again to continue and join the likes of myself, Rawlings and Kufour, who all had double terms. We are not after a one-term president,” he stated.
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