Goosie Tanoh has rejected claims by former President John Mahama that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) lost the 2016 elections because it was the will of God for a purpose.

According to Mahama, the 2016 defeat gave Ghanaians the chance to compare the performance of the erstwhile NDC administration with the current New Patriotic Party government led by Nana Akufo-Addo.

“Sometimes we set our hearts on something but God will not give it to you, but whatever God does is good because it was God who made us lose the election,” said the former President during his campaign tour of the central region last month. We have faith that Ghanaians have both tasted water and alcohol so they know which one is appropriate,” he added.

Mr Tanoh, however, holds a different view, arguing that former President Mahama’s reasons for the NDC’s 2016 humiliating defeat were illogical.

“I wouldn’t say it is an act of God. God has given us capacity as human beings to be able to execute our plans, to be able to conduct ourselves in a certain way and if we fail other human beings will judge us. And on December 7 2016, they judged us,” he told Bola Ray on Starr Chat Wednesday.

Mr Tanoh’s comments come days after a new entrant in the scramble to lead NDC in the 2020 elections, David Dotsey Kuwadah mocked former President Mahama on the same claims.

Speaking Monday, October 1, 2018, at a press conference to announce his intentions to join the NDC flagbearer race, Mr Kuwadah said the former president’s claims were erroneous, noting the NDC’s annihilation in 2016 with Mahama as the presidential candidate was “divine rejection.”

“Ask yourself, upon all these infrastructural developments he was rejected by the people. I call that a divine rejection. In 2016, we were all boasting that almost every village or every district has seen something…and that by all means he would be given the nod.

“But what did we see?  This tells you that something might have gone wrong somewhere that the Lord calls for his replacement,” he stated.