“I take ultimate responsibility for our losing the election” – John Mahama

• Posted on April 12, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

“As the General who led us into battle I take ultimate responsibility for our losing the election. So if it will satisfy those people, blame me for the loss…” those were the words of former president John Mahama who is calling for calm heads in the National Democratic Congress.

The former president was speaking for the first time about the electoral fortunes of the party after the defeat in the 2016 elections which brought the New Patriotic Party into power. The National Democratic Congress (NDC) performed abysmally in the election. Following the defeat, leading figures in the NDC run to the media pointing accusing fingers at each other for the defeat. Foot soldiers of the party also accused the leaders and some government appointees of squandering monies which were meant for the party’s campaign.

At a meeting with former government appointees under his administration, the former president Mahama said amongst other things that “our fortunes are tied in with the party and we are committed members of the party so we must make sure that we put the party in a state where it is able to contribute to the progress of this country even in opposition by making sure that we provide the kind of opposition that safeguards the interest of the people. “The unfortunate developments that are taking place – we’ve set up a committee that is supposed to go round and analyse the reasons for our loss. People are not taking advantage of the committee yet they go on air and say this person or that person was the course of our loss.

“But I’ve said the course of our loss was a multi-faceted and we need to do a careful analysis of it, get the report and be able to breakdown exactly resulted in our loss.”

On the blame game that has dominated the NDC’s discourse, Mr. Mahama said “as the General who led us into battle I take ultimate responsibility for our losing the election. So if it will satisfy those people, blame me for the loss. Yes we lost, we should have done some things better but let’s use this opportunity as a learning opportunity to be able to make sure that we don’t make the same mistakes that we did in 2016.”

By Martin Asiedu-Dartey