John Dramani Mahama, the flag bearer of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), has told the New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) presidential candidate, that he will not debate him to revive his dying campaign.
He wants Bawumia to go and debate Ghanaian farmers who do not have fertilisers to grow their produce, as well as businessmen whose enterprises are being collapsed by the ec onomy.
This, according to Mahama, was the very response Dr. Mahmoud Bawumia gave him in 2020 when the NDC called for a debate between himself and then flag bearer, Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
The former President says the Vice President directed him to go and debate the farmers who do not have fertiliser for their farms when Akufo-Addo was called for a debate in 2020.
His comments come on the back of the renewed calls for the two main presidential candidates to have a debate to explain better, their blueprint for the country if elected in the upcoming December elections.
Earlier, stalwarts within the NDC advised Mahama not to to kotow to the demands saying it was a means by the Vice President and NPP flag bearer to revive his dying political career.
But reacting to the renewed calls for the debate, John Mahama says he will not elevate him to his level to debate him, adding that the persons he referred him to in 2020 are having a more precarious situation now so he should go and debate them.
Speaking at Afienya during the fourth leg of his Greater Accra campaign tour Thursday, October 17, 2024, John Mahama maintained that “Bawumia doesn’t deserve a debate. He is losing this election. I will not elevate him to my level and go and debate him. His campaign is failing. They have no message and so he wants to be elevated to my level. No, I know my level.
“In 2020, [Akufo-Addo] was the sitting President, he refused to take part in a debate. But the one who responded to me when we made the call for the debate is the current flag bearer of the NPP who is asking me for a debate. Has he forgotten what he said, that I should go to Sangma and go debate the farmers at Sangma who don’t have fertiliser.
“All the people you said I should go and debate, their situation is worse than we had in 2016 so you go and debate them. Go and explain and apologise to the people of Ghana,” he stated.
Bawumia states two reasons why Mahama is avoiding presidential debate
