The Northern Regional Communications Directorate of the All People’s Congress (APC) is calling on the vice presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party Dr, Mahamudu Bawumia to render an unqualified apology to the Chieftaincy Institution of Ghana for mocking chiefs during his “state of the Ghana’s economy” lecture in Accra Thursday.
In a terse statement released yesterday, the APC recalled with horror, the NPP vice presidential candidate’s mockery of Ghanaian chiefs.
“Dr Bawumia made a statement on Thursday in his lecture that we felt was a demeaning to the chiefs of the country when he said, while people prefer one dam one village, others prefer one chief, one car” which without any doubt is disrespectful of our chiefs.
According to the APC, it’s very clear that the chiefs of this country play a vital role in all walks of live and need to be respected by all, irrespective of their social, economic or political standing, especially the politicians, and so if the government of Ghana is providing them with cars to facilitate their movement, it does not in any way warrant the disregarding comments made by Dr. Bawumia yesterday, and this comment for us was unfortunate and must be condemned by all.
“No wonder, Dr Bawumia’s party, the NPP, some few days ago in the northern and upper east regions tried to draw our revered chiefs into its political affairs by deceiving the entire world that some chiefs in the regions have endorsed its flagbearer, Nana Akufo Addo and the NPP which turned out to be untrue as the chiefs have vehemently denied such an assertion.”
“What rank hypocrisy, the very party that seem to have recently sought for endorsement of the chiefs for its flagbearer because of their high authority, has now turned against the chiefs because they have come out clearly to disassociate themselves from the recent lies of the NPP,” the APC quizzed.
The APC’s northern region communications director, Mr Abubakari Yussif in a statement said “Chiefs, we all know, preserve their role as symbols of national unity, and are forbidden from active participation in party politics, but the NPP for some time now has mischievously demeaned the chiefs by always trying to drag them into politics and Thursday’s demeaning comments by Dr Bawumia is a clear manifestation that they don’t respect our chieftaincy institution.”
Mr Yussif added that in his lecture Dr Bawumia lied that the NPP government built the Accra and Kumasi Sports stadiums which clearly is another mischief and political propaganda to gain a political advantage and he must apologize to Ghanaians for those lies.
“Kumasi Sports Stadium now Baba Yara Sports Stadium was built by the United African Company (UAC) in 1957 and inaugurated as a designated football pitch in 1959.”
Accra Sports Stadium, now Ohene Djan Stadium on the other hand was also built in 1960 under the government of the first President of Ghana, the late Osagyfo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, he stated.
The NPP government, Mr Yussif explained, only renovated the stadiums in 2008 to be used for the African Cup of Nations hosted by Ghana. All these insults to our chiefs and lies of developmental projects by Dr Bawumia are clear manifestations of disrespect for Ghanaians and the entire world, he added.
As a gentleman who is seeking to become a vice president of our dear nation, the APC in the northern region demands that Dr Bawumia come out and apologise to our great chiefs and Ghanaians at large, he demanded.
