Mahama is on a lamentation tour – Obeng Manu

Editor of the Ghanaian Publisher Newspaper, Yaw Obeng Manu says former President Mahama’s ‘Thank You Tour’ has turned into a ‘lamentation tour’.

He shared that the former President on his ‘Thank You Tour’ has only been taking swipes at the Chair of the Electoral Commission (EC), Jean Mensa and blaming her for his election 2020 defeat.

“I don’t know if former President Mahama is on a ‘Thank You Tour’ or ‘lamentation tour’. He is crying over election 2020 and making Jean Mensa his punching bag and that will not help him,” he told Sefah-Danquah who sat in for Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show.

He believes rather than the former President attacking the EC Chair and blaming others for his election defeat, he should be rather following the steps President Akufo-Addo took after his election defeats in 2008 and 2012.

“President Akufo-Addo spoke about free SHS in 2008, he kept campaigning about it in 2012 and 2016. He spoke about the One-Village-One-Dam and the One-District-One-Factory policies and that gave the Ghanaian something to think about. The former President should give Ghanaians something to contemplate on rather than point fingers and keep talking about his 2020 defeat,” he stated.

According to him, allegations by former President Mahama against the EC “that the EC printed a million ballot papers for the NPP in election 2020 is not good for our democracy because these claims could not be proven in the election petition.

In 2012 the NPP also couldn’t prove their case in court over the election and candidate Akufo-Addo then focused on the 2016 elections. Former President Mahama should move on and campaign for the next election rather than accuse Jean Mensa of election rigging.

The Chairperson of the EC, Jean Mensa at the 2021 ECOWAS Parliamentary Seminar in Winneba in the Central Region on Wednesday described the 2020 general elections as historic, credible, and cost-effective.

She stated that the 2020 elections were a historic one for the transparency, credibility, cost-effectiveness, high turnout, and peaceful conduct that characterized it.

Reacting to this claim, President John Mahama is accusing the Electoral Commission of thumb-printing more than one million extra ballot papers in favor of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections, rendering her claim false.

According to the 2020 presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), “over one million extra ballot papers were printed, which the EC claimed happened by mistake but on the day of the elections, some of the more than one million extra ballot papers had already been secretly thumb-printed in favor of the NPP.”