I won’t retract ‘Do or die affair’ comment – Mahama

• Posted on September 9, 2021September 9, 2021
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Former President John Mahama is calling the bluff of Ghanaians who are asking him to retract his war mongering ‘do or die affair’ comment.

Mr Mahama speaking on pro-NDC Akina Radio in Techiman in the Bono East region on Tuesday as part of his ‘thank you’ campaign to that region stated “It is said that you learn lessons from things that happen so we have also learned from 2020?.

He continued “The elections will be won or lost at the polling station. The polling station will be do or die affair. I haven’t said all die be die, it will be do or die at the polling station, in 2024 that is where we will win the election”.

He said “We will be doing everything to ensure that the election is free and fair. We don’t want to cheat the NPP and we also don’t want them to cheat us. We just want the will of the people to prevail”.
However, the statement has not resonated well with Ghanaians who have been calling on the former president and the NDC leader to apologise for the offensive comment.

Justifying the offensive comment which has generated furore, John Dramani Mahama said his threatening comment of “do or die” was just an idiomatic expression.

Providing an alibi for his violence comments on Sunyani-based Moonlite FM on Wednesday, he said he was taken out of context and would not retract his comment.

Mr. Mahama explained that “… They don’t understand do or die. Do or die is an English idiom. In Africa, we have many proverbs and we sometimes don’t say things in the straight format, we use proverbs. In English, we have idiomatic expressions”.

“Those who left school early don’t understand idiomatic expressions. Do or die means a critical assignment you have and so you must do the needful or perish”.

He added: “What I mean is that the NDC should not wait and go back to the Supreme Court, whatever has to be done at the polling stations and collation centres must be done. And so I don’t retract, the next election for NDC is going to be a do or die affair.

“I’m telling all our party executives that you must be at the polling station to make sure that the right thing is done. Don’t abdicate your responsibility at that level and expect that after somebody has stolen the election we’ll go to Supreme Court to see if they would overturn the election for us, they won’t do it,” he unashamedly explained.