Former President John Dramani Mahama has slammed civil society groups for being quiet and not putting the Akufo-Addo government on its toes in same manner as was done to his government.
Addressing members of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in London, the former President said even religious leaders who hitherto were loud during his tenure as President, have all gone quiet.
“I never ever thought that, Ghanaians will tolerate the level of nepotism in government that we are seeing today, I never ever thought.
“In our case, one of our own said I was running a family and friends government… and NPP took it up. When I had no blood relation of mine in government, except for some low key deputy ministers. Joyce Bawa, my auntie’s daughter, the only blood relation of mine in my government…and when you ask where are they, and they say but your own person said it.”
Adding, the former president said, “suddenly everything has changed, some say that they don’t watch TV again, they watch animals, in our time they were not watching animals. They were listening to political discussion but now they are tired of politics, [and they are saying] too much politics.”
“You will be tired because your darling ‘distin’ government is super incompetent, so they are tired of hearing the analysis, that is the hypocrisy we face,” he said.
Mr Mahama said the President Akufo-Addo government was made up of family and friends who are not contributing anything meaningful to the nation’s development and was therefore surprised that civil society groups and religious leaders are mute over the issue.
“Now today look at it and yet that is the new standard, civil society is quiet, religious leaders are quiet, traditional rulers are quiet [but] when NDC comes the next time round…”.
He questioned: “Must the standards of the nation’s governance differ because of who is in the presidency? That is the hypocrisy of our politics, that is the height of the hypocrisy we have in Ghana. Something is pardonable when one government is in power but when one government comes to power, its unpardonable. Things that the media would have made so much noise about under my administration, it happens every day and it is like business as usual, that is the hypocrisy of our civil society and religious leaders and our traditional rulers. Everybody is quiet, shut up.”
Source: Graphic.com.gh