<<Print>>

Mahama's "Do or Die"; a funny tale of how his followers who couldn't understand unambiguous vigilance are expected to understand an idiom.

On a normal day, John Mahama's do or die comment would have been viewed as the desperate effusions by a politician to attempt saving his name from going down in history as the only President in the 4th Republic who could not win re-election.

This would have been the only plausible explanation coming from someone who has been a Member of Parliament (MP), Deputy Minister, Minister, Vice President and a President who was rejected at the polls because of his unmitigated disastrous economic record (courtesy President Akufo-Addo).

However, the posture of Mahama and the NDC prior to and after the 2020 general elections coupled with his recent 'transical' outbursts since he started his so-called 'Thank You tour' betrays his afterthought explanation of do or die as vigilance. For indeed, the key word abused by Mahama and the NDC going into their defeat in the 2020 elections was vigilance.

In fact, John Mahama whilst addressing party supporters in Nyanshegu N/R stressed the need for vigilance by saying "all of us will be party agents on that day, and all of us are going to be vigilant." On the day of the elections and after voting, he urged his followers in a tweet to "continue to remain vigilant as we enter the results collation stage”.

The NDC, as a party, continuously admonished its followers during the campaign period to be vigilant. To highlight how serious they were on the subject of vigilance, their National Chairman, Ampofo launched an initiative termed "One Collation Centre, One Lawyer".

So if all these unambiguous calls for vigilance by Mahama and the NDC were not understood by the NDC members resulting in their defeat in 2020 as Mahama wants us to believe, how does he expect them to understand an idiom which in its apparent form could be misunderstood as a call for chaos?

What else could be more clear in exposing the real intent of his reckless do or die comment and that his explanation of 'vigilance' was an afterthought? In stating reasons why he chose to challenge the 2020 election results, John Mahama said "I want a Ghana where institutions of state can be held accountable. A Ghana where we can stand on principles and demand accountability without the risk of losing our lives".

The court to him was the place to demand accountabiity without risking lives. But in a sharp contradiction and less than a year after making this statement, he now claims that they won't seek justice at the court again and that their preferred place of seeking accountability was a do or die at the polling station.

This sudden u-turn is a recipe for chaos which he intends to use as a cover to hide the shame from their frivolous petition which was dismissed unanimously by the Supreme Court. H. E. Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia was apt when he said "...If you go to court to challenge an election result and you have no pink sheet, then your case will die".

From the aforementioned, it is obvious the Do or Die expression by John Mahama was either an unlikely gaffe for which he should acknowledge or it was an inadvertent expression of a hidden determined agenda to return back to power by any means necessary even if it has to do with chaos.

It is time Mr. Mahama realizes that he belongs to the past. Ghanaians remember vividly how he plunged this country into difficulties and that the country has moved beyond his era of massive economic stagnation that sent Ghana to the IMF. Ghanaians see the future in the venerable Dr. Bawumia after witnessing how he has been very instrumental as vice president in bringing up key policies that have made Ghana a better place.


Thank you