The National Democratic Congress’s candidate for the 2024 general election, John Dramani Mahama, has responded to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s assertion that the contentious ‘Agyapadie’ document is a fabrication.
The NDC leader contends that the Agyapadie document is indeed authentic, as its revelations continue to emerge daily, surprising the citizens of Ghana.
The former president expressed his disbelief regarding how the contents of a document that President Akufo-Addo claims to be fabricated could be executed by his administration.
President Akufo-Addo, speaking at the Ghana Report Summit on the theme “Dealing with Misinformation and Disinformation – Election 2024” in Accra last Thursday broke his silence and dismissed the book labelling it as another attempt by his political opponents to impugn his integrity.
“The recent fabrication, ‘Agyapadie’ falsely claims a grand scheme by my party to annex state assets. This baseless document is a clear attempt to mislead and create distrust,” the President said at the summit.
Purported to have been authored by close associates of the President, the book outlines a well-documented scheme of activities rolled out to annex state resources for the good of the President, his immediate family and ethnic group.
But addressing a durbar of chiefs and queenmothers at Bawku on day one of his Upper East Regional campaign tour on Saturday, the former president said the book was a clear indication of a scheme put in place by the Akufo-Addo government to plunder state assets for his family’s interest.
“Recently, there’s an issue about the ‘Agyapadie’ document which they say is fabricated. Even if it is fabricated, the implementation is not fabricated because everything in that document is being implemented. So if somebody sat and fabricated that document then the person can really read the minds of people because how could he have written that document and read the mind of President Akufo-Addo and his family that this is what they were going to do? That person should be a proper creative writer because everything in that document has been implemented,” the former president observed.
To this end, Mr Mahama said he would strictly hold President Akufo-Addo and his appointees to account if he won the election.
“Those who have made the people of Ghana suffer by misappropriating the wealth of the people by abusing their offices must be held accountable for what they have done,” he stated adding
that in his view, a vote for the NPP’s candidate, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, would mean extending President Akufo-Addo’s grip on power and send the signals that Ghanaians were happy with how the country has been ran.
According to the former president, several investors have told him in private that they were waiting to see how the elections would go before they invest their monies into the Ghanaian economy.
“So let us not make any mistake with this particular election. It’s an election like no other because it will determine the future of this country,” he said charging the people to turn out in their numbers and vote for the NDC.
FROM JULIUS YAO PETETSI, BAWKU
