2020 polls: Mahama’ll never taste power again – Akua Donkor, as she files nomination
The flagbearer of the Ghana Freedom Party (GFP), Madam Akua Donkor, has said former President John Mahama will never return to power because his defeat in 2016 was his karma for “conspiring” with the then-Chair of the Electoral Commission (EC), Mrs Charlotte Osei, against her presidential ambition.
The farmer told journalists on Thursday, 8 October 2020 after filing her presidential nomination at the EC’s head office in Accra that Mr Mahama lost the presidency because he paid her in bad coin after being good to him.
Akua Donkor was disqualified by the EC in the last general election for failing to meet all the requirements for filing of nomination.
She is one of two women who filed on Thursday.
The other female aspirant is former First Lady Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings.
This brings to three, the number of female aspirants who have entered the race.
Ms Brigitte Dzogbenuku of the Progressive People’s Party (PPP) filed on Wednesday, 7 October.
After filing, Mrs Agyeman-Rawlings told the media that Ghana is lucky to have Mrs Jean Mensa as the Chair of the Electoral Commission and that she and her party, the National Democratic Party (NDP), are happy with the work of the election management body, so far, toward the 7 December 2020 polls.
“Actually, I’m not interested in what other parties are saying. What we are saying is that we’ve been lucky to have an Electoral Commissioner who sees a bigger picture, a broader picture for the whole country and we have systematically worked toward the programme that they have given us. So, for me, I’m OK with what’s going on”, she told Class91.3FM’s Blessed Sogah in an interview at the EC’s head office in Accra.
The flagbearer of the NDP described her ability to file the form as “elating”.
“We’re very happy that finally, we got everything together, we’ve presented it to the Electoral Commission”, she told journalists.
Asked if she was sure to perform better than 2016, Mrs Agyeman-Rawlings asked the journalist: “Were you here last four years? If you were, then you know the work the EC did to stop some of the parties from even entering this place, so, if you were here, then I don’t think you should have asked that question because we had two weeks,14 days, to do everything and start campaigning, so, that should tell you why it happened that way”.
In the 2016 polls, Mrs Agyeman-Rawlings got 16,935 out of the total 10,881,083 votes.
She is, however, confident of victory in this year’s election.
She outlined her plans for the country should she win.
“We win the election, we are going to change certain things, especially in the educational system, because we have a lot of people who are entering the university today, they go to the universities because that’s the only place to go to, from SHS, they enter the university but if you could structure the educational system, so that we have the skills training, skills development, apprenticeship; we’ll have many more people having a hands-on approach to jobs that can be done and they would earn far more than just going to a university and coming to sit at home.
“So, we are looking at making people have a skill that will push them into the job arena”, she said.
She also urged the political parties and their candidates to talk to dissuade their followers from violence.
“It’s important for us to realise that it’s not those who are standing for the elections, who actually create the problems.
“It may be the followers, so, between the leaders and followers, there has to be some dialogue, so we let our people know that we’re one people, one nation, one objective: to make Ghana better”.
Mrs Agyeman-Rawlings said: “If Ghana is going to be better, there are certain things that need to be done.
“Stealing has to stop, improvement of education has to be seen to, and of course, skills training for the young people so that everybody occupied with something, everybody is doing something that brings them income.
“That way, I believe that we’ll move the country away from unnecessary upheavals”, she added.
