Comments by Chief of Staff Julius Debrah that people who hail from the three regions in the north should vote for President John Mahama because he is their own is “ethnocentric, tribalistic, and unbefitting” of a person occupying that high office, a group called the Movement for Kingdom Image (MFKI) has said.

Mr Debrah, at the launch of Majority Leader Alban Bagbin’s campaign in the Nadowli-Kaleo constituency in the Upper West Region on Saturday, 24 September, appealed to northerners not to disappoint their “own brother” in the December 7 polls.

“Now it’s the turn of President John Dramani Mahama, who is from the north, and we are being told that we should let him stay only four years so that we can bring somebody. I don’t think this is fair,” Mr Debrah told the crowd of supporters, adding: “And, so, I’m using this occasion to urge you all to vote massively for your own brother.

“The last time we had a president from the northern part of this country is 35 years ago, and, so, if we are not lucky and this opportunity slips by, who knows, we are going to wait for another 35 years.”

But a statement issued and signed by Kofi Osempakani Kaakyire, President of MFKI, on Tuesday, September 27 said: “We the Movement for the Kingdom Image are disappointed in Chief of Staff Julius Debrah for his ethnocentric and tribalistic [remarks] during his speech [at] Alban Bagbin’s campaign launch. We heard the Chief of Staff telling the people of the North to vote for their brother, a northerner, or else they are sidelined for good.”

“We think Julius [Debrah] doesn't deserve to hold the position as Chief of Staff, whose position means that he is lord over all the ministers and government appointees, which is not a small position. So we expected him to speak with maturity, especially in this hot political era. Such comments have encouraged the young ones in the party to be doing violent things in this country. Ghana needs peace so our politicians must be responsible. We are disappointed in Julius [Debrah] or such inflammatory statement.”