Richard Ahiagbah, the Communications Director for the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has taken a jab at the former president John Dramani Mahama, saying that the launch of the former president’s campaign was “flat” and “lacked hope for the ordinary Ghanaian.”
According to Mr. Ahiagbah, the former President’s campaign launch was characterized by the recycling of old promises and ideas that were stolen from the NPP and other people. Mr. Ahiagbah said this was the case.
On March 2, 2023, Mr. Mahama launched his campaign at Ho in the Volta Region. He had said before that he wanted to run for the position of flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Mr. Ahiagbah, while being interviewed by Umaru Sanda Amandu on Eyewitness News, stated that “there’s more of the old stuff that he said.
The entire program was uninteresting, and there was no sign of enthusiasm. There is no sense of direction in the program; all he did was recycle previously stated ideas while sprinkling in a few new ones here and there.
I did not see any glimmer of hope regarding the information. There was a lot of false information and recycling of old promises, and there’s not much there to talk about.
The previous head of state did not give much credence to a suggestion that had been made by Kofi Asare, the executive director of Eduwatch, regarding how the government could make it simpler for students to move on from junior high school to senior high school.
“For example, we need to put an end to the chaos that currently prevails in the computerized school selection and placement system for BECE graduates.
The first thing that should be done is to stipulate that students can only finish their applications for SHS once they have received the results of their BECE.
According to Mr. Mahama, “They will be in a better position to know their actual grades and match them with the cut-off grades and raw scores of the senior high schools they wish to be admitted to.” This is because they will have access to the new grading system.
In response to this, however, Mr. Ahiagbah stated that “if there was anything at all, there was a lot of plagiarism in parts of his speech.” Mr. Kofi Asare discussed a potential solution to the problems we face with school placement, which involves giving the students more agency over their educational futures after they have received their test results.
The previous president stated the same thing during the launch of his campaign without giving credit to anyone else; this constitutes obvious plagiarism.
In an additional nod to Mr. Mahama’s campaign slogan, “Building the Ghana we want,” the Communications Director for the NPP leveled the accusation that the former president had stolen ideas from the African Union 2063 Agenda.
“If you go to the Africa Union’s 2063 Agenda, building the Africa we want, he just took the Africa there and put Ghana,” the statement reads. He has plagiarized all over the place without giving credit for it, and we are running a campaign that is very similar to his.
But the Kofi Asare remark is far more damaging to his reputation. He simply stated it in a clear manner as though it had been his idea all along,” he said.