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Presidential Candidate for the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), John Dramani Mahama has slammed the sitting President Nana Akufo-Addo for expressing anger over “Akyem Sakawa Boys” he reposted on his Facebook timeline a few days ago.

President Akufo-Addo has condemned and complained to Catholic Bishops at a meeting at the Jubilee House after Mr. Mahama shared an article by lawmaker Isaac Adongo which used the labelling ‘Akyem Sakawa Boys’ for some individuals in government.

“Archbishop, this name-calling seems to be a feature of Ghanaian public life. But sometimes, when things come out, we would hope that you will comment on them. The comment made by my opponent, “Akyem Sakawa people,” I have not heard any public figure, independent person, yourselves, comment on it. It is completely unacceptable. If I were to get up to make comments about Northerners or Gonjas, you can imagine the uproar that would be in the country.

“Presidential candidate, a former President of Ghana, you can call a group of Ghanaians “Sakawa people”, and it involves the group for which the sitting President comes, and that statement goes without comment, and at the same time we hear all these statements, let all try and bring the politics of insults to an end,” the President bemoaned.

But former President Mahama reacting to the complaint of President Akufo-Addo in an interview with XYZ in Wa said that the posture of the President before the Catholic Bishops is not the best as a leader.

He added that temperament in leadership is very important, thus, President Akufo-Addo should learn to control his anger in public as he seemed very angry when talking to the Catholic Bishops in a meeting at the Jubilee House.   

“There are many things a president should attempt to and you must not seem to appear in public to have lost your cool. He seems very angry, that’s cool, I think he should maintain his temperament to come across as a good leader,” he said.

“It is important to point out that no one has described his [Akufo-Addo] ethnic group or any other ethnic group as in the manner in which the President mounts this complaint.

He, however, explained that sharing the post of one of his finest and brilliant MPs from Bolgatanga Central, Hon. Isaac Adongo, describing certain people in the Akufo-Addo government as “Akyem Sakawa Boys”.

“What I remember is that I shared the post of one of our finest and brilliant MPs from Bolgatanga Central, Isaac Adongo. In that post, Adongo described certain people in the Akufo-Addo government…you know he has a lot of his friends and members of the family in his government so Isaac Adongo described those people behind a certain shady deal in the government in that particular manner”.

“In the first place, the National Chairman of my party, Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, is an Akyem and so are so many leading members and supporters of the NDC. When I was a President, I appointed a lot of Akyems…the head of the NDC manifesto drafting committee, Prof Danso Boafo is an Akyem and they have all contributed to our government and our forward march to recapture power in December…” he said.