Spio-Garbrah Endorses John Mahama
Former President John Mahama’s quest to retain the baton as the Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress, NDC, has received a huge boost with the unequivocal endorsement by a stalwart of the party, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah. The former minister of state in the Jerry Rawlings and John Mahama administrations said, the person delegates must go for in the May 13 primaries is John Dramani Mahama if the party is to wrest power from the governing New Patriotic Party led by President Akufo-Addo.
With less than a week to go for the NDC Presidential and Parliamentary Primaries pointing toward the 2024 General Elections, Former President John Dramani Mahama, faces a stiff internal contest by a former Finance Minister and Governor of the Central Bank, Dr Kwabena Duffour, and a former Mayor of Kumasi, Mr Kojo Bonsu.
At a special news conference in Accra, Dr. Spio-Garbrah said, Ghana has experienced the worst under the current administration which expresses itself in the forms of poor security, wanton opulence, and exploitation of natural resources to the benefit of a few. He said, the extent of economic bankruptcy that Ghana found itself with has bewildered and put its watchers at wit’s end over the irony of poverty in plenty. He said, that this represents a significant failure on the part of the government, which agonizingly espouses the mantra ”Ghana Beyond Aid” and yet it is the largest borrower in the nation’s history.
Dr. Spio-Garbrah said the strains and the frets Ghanaians are enduring can only be turned around by an NDC administration if the good people of Ghana do the right thing by restoring the NDC to power to fix the economy and bringing them the much-needed relief. He insinuated that the unconventional principle of winner-takes-all under the current political dispensation has sidelined many brains and brawns willing to help but are held at bay, hence the vicious circumstances in the country.
The three-time contestant extolled the latter as a fine gentleman, a good communicator and enormously endowed in the political journey to mobilize all possibilities to take Ghana out of the quandary and quagmire to the enviable position befitting Ghana in the international community.
Dr. Spio-Garbrah said, beyond Presidents Jerry John Rawlings and John Atta Mills to whom John Mahama was accountable for his stewardship as a minister of state and at one time as Vice-president, Dr. Spio-Garbrah is perhaps the third personality to have supervised John Mahama when he was his deputy as the Communications Ministry between 1997 and 1998.
He is of the view that circumstances favor John Mahama as a former President with the necessary capacities and connections to win the party’s internal primaries and to go on to clinch the national diadem, in a long march that requires short-term results for the people of Ghana. From two standpoints, he is convinced of a Mahama victory on the basis of polls conducted by his agents, and other cogent pointers from unimpeachable sources. While not wishing away or downplaying candidates Duffour and Kojo Bonsu, he said the die was cast and the NDC family will join forces in post-May 13 to win the 2024 elections.
When asked whether he will accept the offer to partner Mahama as a running mate, Dr. Spio-Garbrah said that question belongs to a wider circle beyond the main candidate. However, he said, in 2006 while he was a contestant, he stated categorically at the Teachers’ Hall that the product he was vouching for today, was the same he vouched for when the question was posed to him as to who will be his running mate at the time. Dr Spio-Garbrah placed second in the 2006 contest, behind Prof. John Atta Mills. The other presidential racers were Alhaji Mahama Iddrissu and Mr. Eddie Annan.
Find the full speech below: