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The Presidential Candidate for the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama says President Nana Akufo-Addo has lost the right to complain about the “Akyem Sakawa Boys” statement he posted his Facebook timeline a few days ago.

According to him, President Akufo-Addo cannot lose his cool as a leader over the “Akyem Sakawa Boys” comment as he used to call his predecessors all sorts of names when he was in opposition.

“President Akufo-Addo has lost the right to complain because while he was in opposition, he called his predecessors all sorts of names”, NDC Flagbearer said.

“He called me Dr. Do Little and called somebody ‘Simpa Panyin’ and I don’t want to repeat some of the things he has said. He is a President who has called his critics naysayers and Jeremiahs, so I don’t understand on what standard he will be offended at this time because, when he has precedence of name-calling,” he said.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has condemned a reference to himself and his home townsfolk as ‘Akyem Mafia’ and ‘Sakawa’ people by opposition MP Isaac Adongo, which was amplified by former President John Dramani Mahama, who shared it on his Facebook timeline a few days ago.

The Bolgatanga Central MP, in a statement relating to the controversial Agyapa Royalties deal, accused the President and his kith of forming a families-and-friends cartel to capture the mineral resources of the state via the deal.

At a meeting with the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference at the Jubilee House on Friday, 4 August 2020, President Akufo-Addo not only said he was “very disturbed” by the ethnocentric tagging his ethnic group but also said, “that is the kind of language we don’t want in our politics.”

“Sometimes, one would hope when things come out, people will comment on them. The comment made by my opponent: ‘Akyem Sakawa’ people, I have not heard any public figure in this country or anybody comment on it.”

“If I was to get up to make a comment about northerners or Gonjas, you can imagine the uproar that will be in the country,” the President bemoaned.

But the former President reacting in an interview with Radio XYZ in Wa said that the attempt by President Akufo-Addo to campaign on ethnic lines will not wash as he [Mahama] has advocated for an issue-based campaign in the upcoming elections.