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Trainee-nurses in the country say President John Dramani Mahama will be badly disillusioned if he thinks he can use the plan to restore their allowance as a bait to win their votes in the December 7 elections.

The President Monday announced a decision by his government to restore the allowances of the trainee-nurses while addressing a gathering in the Brong-Ahafo Region where is currently on a campaign tour, after he had justified the withdrawal of the facility on countless occasions.

But some of the student-nurses who spoke to the Daily Statesman yesterday said the presient is not sincere with his promise and so they cannot trust him on that.

“We can’t trust the president on this. He just wants to use it as a desperate means to get our votes, which will never happen. We can’t be fooled; he just wants to give us something now and withdraw it again in January 2017 after the elections. But we can assure him that we will not fall for this,” one student, who gave her name as Maame Yaa, stated.

Many Ghanaians, including governance experts, have described the president's action as “weak” and a “visible act of indecision and desperation.”

This is because he had on several occasions rubbished the incessant calls by the trainee-nurses for the restoration of their allowances, always insisting that it was impossible for anyone to reinstate the scrapped allowances.

In one of his speeches during his visit in the Western region, he stated: "I hear Opana(Nana Addo) and his NPP saying they will restore the trainee- nurses and teachers allowances. This is not possible and doable.The cancellation of the allowances is an avenue to increase enrollment in colleges. The NPP cannot restore the nurses and teacher-trainees allowances. Where will Nana Addo, Bawumia and the NPP get the money to undertake such a useless ventures?"

The president further went on to chastise the NPP, saying: "If the NPP has nothing better to say then they should not distract me from working. If the scrapping of the allowances will let me to lose this election then I AM READY TO LOSE THE ELECTION THAN RESTORING THE ALLOWANCES."

Meanwhile, a Senior Political Science Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Dr Amoako Baah, in an interview with the Daily Statesman, said President Mahama had lost his credibility as the first gentleman of the land due to his indecisiveness.

In the view of the senior lecturer, the President’s sudden change of mind to restore in full allowance just two months to the general elections apparently shows that he is operating with fear and panic.

According to him, it is increasingly becoming pathetic how the President cannot take one concrete decision with regards to the payment of the trainees’ allowances.

Dr. Amoako Baah said the back and forth status of the President is a clear mark of desperation, and maintained that anyone who can just change things at will is not bold and competent.

He described President Mahama as a leader engaging in what is termed as “politics of pondering to the beast” where one says what people want to hear regardless of its consequences.