Prime News Ghana

NDC lost because JM was told things he wanted to hear

By Anny Osabutey
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Former 2008 Campaign Manager of the 2008 campaign elections which got President John Mills elected into office, Rojo Mettle-Nunoo, says the party lost the 2016 elections because President John Mahama was fixated on hearing messages about him winning a landslide, when evidence on the ground did not reflect that.

In what analysts say was the biggest electoral defeat suffered by a political party under the fourth republic, the National Democratic Congress was crushed at the polls when its candidate, John Mahama, lost out to the NPP’s Nana Akufo Addo with more than a million vote difference. The party also lost several parliamentary seats and its majority in parliament.

The defeat angered the grassroots base of the party leading to accusations the campaign team diverted thousands of dollars which ought to have gone to the constituencies. Mr. Mahama himself was also accused of surrounding himself with “yes men” who told him things he wanted to hear.  And Mr. Nunoo, who served as a Deputy Minister of Health, said the party lost partly because of the former president was told things he wanted to hear, instead of being told the truth.

“We carried out research, we did a 32,000 household survey across the 10 regions of this country, identifying attitudes, behaviours , perceptions and desires of the people of Ghana,” he said, adding: “We put the report together and either the report( it did find its way to the presidency) Sometimes  people want to hear what they want to hear; if you think you are winning and somebody comes and say, wait a minute, you are losing,(that is hard to swallow)”

He said the comprehensive data was kept away from the presidency by those around him, so the party’s defeat did not come to him as a surprise.

“If you want people who will sing his masters voice you will not be heard. I believe strongly that our message, our research data was not accepted, it did not impact the strategy of the elections and it was a disaster waiting to happen.”

The party has since received a Kwesi Botchwey report detailing reasons why the party was trounced in the elections. One of the reasons cited was the absence of a strong research base good enough to counter the arguments put forward by the now ruling NPP.