Ghanaians don’t need Akufo-Addo vs Mahama debate – Awuku

The governing New Patriotic Party has poured cold water on a challenge thrown by 2020 NDC flagbearer John Mahama for a debate with his rival, President Nana Akufo-Addo.

NPP National Organiser Sammy Awuku has said the works of the Akufo-Addo government are self-evident and proceeded to list road and railway projects in Accra, Tamale and Takoradi.

“I don’t need a debate to tell you that these are tangible things that are happening across the country,” Sammy Awuku told Joy FM, in an interview monitored by theghanareport.com.

He said the party has its timetable and strategies for campaign and would stick to it. Sammy Awuku would however not rule out a possible match between the two.

“When the need arises then we can give it a thought,” he said.

The former president, John Mahama, who is seeking another chance to lead the country threw the challenge while touring the Volta region.

“After all, the president said this election is going to be an election of track records…Let’s have a debate between the two of us. Let Nana Akufo-Addo come and sit down, let me sit down and let’s debate our records,” he proposed.

The two have debated each other in 2012 when Mahama, then vice-president, was elevated president after John Evans Atta Mills died in office.

Four years later, the two leaders failed to show up at the IEA presidential debate, traditional organisers of the event.

The NDC had boycotted the IEA while Akufo-Addo, then the main opposition leader,  skipped the event.

But John Mahama showed up at his preferred platform, the NCCE/GBC presidential debate, with Akufo-Addo notably absent.

For the third time in a row, Nana Akufo-Addo and John Mahama are set for another presidential race with the former now the incumbent.

But chances of a debate between the two could be as elusive as 2016 was. #

Deputy Information Minister Pius Hadzide dismissed Mahama’s challenge as “pointless” and “unnecessary.”

“We do not believe that we need a debate”, he said.

The deputy minister said Ghanaians are already debating the records of the two leaders after the vice-president Dr Mahamudu Bawumia set the tone last Tuesday at a town hall meeting the government organised.

The vice-president, focusing on infrastructural developments under the Akufo-Addo government, said the NPP has initiated more than 17,000 projects since it formed the government in January 2017.

Mr Hadzide maintained that it is “trite knowledge” for the president to repeat facts of his government in a debate with John Mahama.

He said if the president was however to debate John Mahama, he would no doubt emerge victorious.