Painting Ghana black to foreigners 'unpatriotic' - Osafo-Maafo blasts Mahama
15th February 2019
Ghana’s Senior Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo has questioned former President John Mahama for showing photos and videos of the violence that rocked the Ayawaso West Wuogon by-election to the diplomatic community.
According to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) stalwart, the conduct of the NDC flagbearer aspirant is “unpatriotic and shameful.”
“This is unpatriotic and shameful. It is because if he gathered Ghanaians, call it the academia or Ghanaian professionals or Ghanaian businessmen and he talked about matters of concern to him, I’ll have no problem. He’s a former head of state and then for a very important opinion leader but to gather foreigners and try to paint Ghana black is just not acceptable”, the Senior Minister condemned in a short video clip.
Mr. Osafo-Maafo also noted that, John Mahama who wants to be president of Ghana again should carry himself as a proper statesman.
“What is he really after? What does former president Mahama want to portray? Why does he want to paint Ghana black? When indeed there is nothing to paint black. There was some violent, it didn’t happen in a polling station, it happened as it were in the parliamentary candidate’s house away from any polling station and we’re yet to know who even shot. Why would you want this to look like a national disaster? This is really nothing; it’s not good and I will never support any such thing but if you look at what has happened in previous by-elections in this country, this is nothing more than what had happened earlier,” he added.
The former president on Wednesday, February 13, 2019 received a delegation of diplomats where he sought to share with them his position on the January 31 violence at La Bawaleshie, a suburb of Accra.
In that incident, masked and heavily armed special forces fired shots and beat up persons suspected to be hiding guns and ammunition to disrupt the by-elections.