The Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, says most ceremonies the President and Vice President attend are politicised.
According to him, most events he has attended where a government delegation is present, turned out as though they were organised for members of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
“It is not the national celebrations alone. In fact, it has now descended into practically all social gatherings to which the President or the Vice President is invited.
“I have complained about even funerals, festivals, not state funerals, but private funerals which the President or the Vice President has been invited to,” he said on JoyNews’ The Pulse on Wednesday.
Mr Nketia, thus, wondered if national events are supposed to be organised with such partisanship.
“I don’t know whether it is a national policy, but somehow, efforts will be made to edge out other participants. Yes, I have had cause to complain at some of the key festivals in the country to which President Mahama and Buwumia had been invited.
“When the NDC is invited to a function they will invite him [Dr Bawumia] and then we also go together around our former President… and so I have attended about two, three festivals where you realise that the master of ceremonies would intentionally be doing things that are clearly disrespectful to the former president,” he added.
Narrating an experience at a Bawku festival where both former President Mahama and the Vice President were attendees, he said, “there was an occasion you will go to the festival and the original program that has been drawn will provide for some address by former President, some address by Vice President.
“Some way somehow in the course of the program, they will be insisting that if they allow former President Mahama to speak the Vice President will leave the function and it actually happened in Bawku at a festival where I was present,” he told the host, Blessed Sogah.
The NDC stalwart added that he was subjected to similar treatment when he attended the burial of his former colleague in Parliament.
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He said at this funeral, members of the NPP did not give room for his donation to be announced. He, therefore, forced his way to the stage to self-announce his contribution.
However, Mr Nketia noted that during the tenure of ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor, this trend was not the case.
It would be recalled that on March 6, former President Mahama said he boycotted the national event in the Northern Region because the ceremony had been politicised.
According to him, not only has the celebration become a “party jamboree” but there was also no need to fund this year’s celebration in the face of current economic hardship.
“I have stopped going to the Independence Day because it has become a party jamboree. When I went to Tamale, they told GBC to take the camera off me. They bused their supporters in and filled the whole stadium,” he said.
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