John Mahama
Former President John Mahama has called the bluff of President Akufo-Addo asking for an apology over the description of the Akyem ethnic group as sakawa people (scammers).
Mr Mahama who is NDC flagbearer, was reported to have described Akyems as sakawa people over the Agyapa Royalties deal.
However the call has not gone down well with President Akufo-Addo describing it as offensive.
But the former President is unapologetic insisting the that President Akufo-Addo has lost the moral right to complain.
“What I remember is that I shared the post of one of our finest and brilliant MPs from Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo. In that post, Adongo described certain people in the Akufo-Addo government…you know he has a lot of his friends and members of the family in his government so Isaac Adongo described those people behind a certain shady deal in the government in that particular manner,” he told pro- NDC TV XYZ.
“He’s the President who has called his critics naysayers and Jeremiahs,” he added.
“I don’t understand on what standard he can be offended at this time because he has precedent of name-calling.”
President Akufo-Addo on Friday described as unacceptable ethnocentric comments made by John Mahama, referring to people from his Akyem ethnic group as “Sakawa people”.
“I’m very very disturbed by this remark that the former President Mahama made that statement that Akyem people are sakawa people,” President Akufo-Addo said in a meeting with the Ghana Catholic Bishops Conference (GCBC) who called on him at the Jubilee House, Accra.
“What can be the basis of such a remark. If it is a public act that you have a problem with, fair enough but that the people who are doing it are given this ethnic branding, it cannot be right…. That’s the kind of language that we don’t want in our politics,” the President said.
“If I was to get up to make a comment about Northerners or Gonjas, you can imagine the uproar there will be in the country.
“A Presidential candidate, a former President of Ghana, you can call a group of Ghanaians sakawa people and it involves the group from which the sitting President comes and that statement goes without a comment and in the same time, we hear these statements ‘let’s all try and bring the politics of insults to an end”.
The President said he was not happy that till date Mr Mahama had not been reprimanded for making that statement.
“The comment made by my opponent – ‘Akyem Sakawa people’ – I’ve not heard any public figure in this country, independents, ourselves or anybody comment on it. It’s completely unacceptable.