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Presidency to Mahama: Your claim that Akufo-Addo failed to condemn Election 2020 deaths is false

Admin January 9, 2024

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The director of communications at the seat of Ghana’s presidency, Eugene Arhin, has called out the National Democratic Congress flagbearer, John Dramani Mahama, over what he says is his false and misleading claim that President Akufo-Addo failed to condemn the election-related deaths that occurred during the December 2020 presidential and parliamentary elections.

In a post on his Facebook wall in response to Mahama’s claim, made on 7 January 2024, Arhin quoted and posted a video clip extracted from President Akufo-Addo’s victory speech, delivered on 9 December 2020 at his residence in Nima, Accra.

In that address, he condemned unequivocally the sad incidents which had led to the deaths of eight individuals in the course of the general election.

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“I condemn in no uncertain terms the isolated incidents of post-electoral violence in Odododiodioo and Techiman that led to a few regrettable deaths. May their souls rest in peace. We must work to avoid the repetition of such events in the future.”

“This statement was made by President Akufo-Addo on Wednesday 9 December 2020, at his Nima residence, after being declared the winner of the 2020 elections,” Arhin wrote on his Facebook wall.

“Former President Mahama’s claim that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo ‘has not uttered even a word of sympathy to the bereaved families’ is simply not true. He should, therefore, do the needful and congratulate President Akufo-Addo on his victory in 2020,” the director of communications further said.

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Mahama made the claim on Sunday (7 January 2024) in a statement to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the Fourth Republican constitution of the country, which came into force on 7 January 1992.

“I urge the current government to refrain from actions that continue to undermine democratic rights under their administration,” Mahama said in his statement. “The use of thugs and rogue elements within the security agencies to disrupt elections in some parts of the country as occurred in the 2020 elections, leading to the loss of eight lives, will for ever be remembered as Ghana’s day of infamy and an indelible blemish on our democratic credentials established over the last 31 years of constitutional rule,” the former president said.

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“On a rather sad note, it is unconscionable that three years after these tragic events, our president, Nana Akufo-Addo, has not uttered even a word of sympathy to the bereaved families. The perpetrators of these murders continue to walk as free men and still hold on to positions of authority and power,” the NDC flagbearer said.