Akomea Flays Mahama Over Funeral Speech

New Patriotic Party (NPP) Communications Director Nana Akomea has descended heavily on President John Dramani Mahama for using the funeral grounds of late President Atta Mills for his political campaign.

President Mahama used the one week observation of the passing of Prof. Mills to launch his campaign, calling on Ghanaian youth to rally and vote for him because he is a youthful president.

However, speaking in an interview with DAILY GUIDE at the Parliament House yesterday, Nana Akomea described President Mahama’s conduct as a complete disrespect to the memory of the late President Mills.

According to the NPP’s Communications Director, the week’s observation of the death of President Mills was a major solemn national activity of grief that should have been devoid of politics.

Describing it as culturally and morally inappropriate, Nana Akomea wondered why President Mahama, who was supposed to be the chief mourner, would use the solemn occasion to talk about his personal attributes and promote himself to people from different political parties gathered in a national mood to mourn late President Mills.

“It was totally inappropriate for self-promotion and campaigning at a time the nation had gathered to mourn our late president,” the NPP Communications Director decried.

He slammed President Mahama’s description of himself as the only Head of State to have been born after Ghana’s independence, representing the new generation of the youth in the country.

“The people who were there (funeral grounds) didn’t go there to listen to campaign speech, it was the most inappropriate speech,” Nana Akomea stated, stressing that being born after independence did not give anybody any special leadership qualities.

The President’s comment, according to Nana Akomea, was disrespectful to Ghanaian leaders who were born before independence, as he seemed to have suggested they lacked the ability to galvanise the youth of this country.

“Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was in his 40s when he became President, Dr. Hilla Limann was in his 40s when he became President, JJ Rawlings in his 30s when he became President of this country, so it is not about age but the ideas, policies and programmes directed towards the well-being of the youth,” he said.

President Mahama, he pointed out, defeated his own comments of presenting a youthful team to the Ghanaian electorate, having nominated a vice who was born before independence, and more than 60 years.

“Vice- Presidential nominee Kwesi Amissah-Arthur was certainly born before Independence and he does not possess any special or natural attributes that President John Mahama wants Ghanaians to believe, yet he has chosen him to be his Vice-President”, Nana Akomea, who is also the Member of Parliament for Okaikwei South, remarked.

He further argued that it was not age that determined whether a President would transform the lives of the youth of this country or not, but rather the policies and programmes that would help the teeming unemployed youth.

According to him, the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) had no track record of instituting anything new to support the Ghanaian youth apart from of NPP’s pragmatic policy of National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), which the ruling party heavily criticised when it was in opposition.

Nana Akomea indicated that in 2008 when the NPP left power, the cabinet of President Agyekum Kufuor had already approved National Youth Policy with an Action Plan.

He condemned the NDC administration for allowing the National Employment Policy with an Action Plan to gather dust under the watch of John Mahama as the Vice-President.

“Unfortunately when the former National Youth Council Coordinator, Sekou Nkrumah criticised the ruling government for not implementing the National Youth Policy, he was sacked from office”, Nana Akomea noted.