The executive director of IMANI Ghana, a policy think tank, says President John Mahama’s speech at the NDC manifesto launch on Thursday was empty and shallow.

To Franklin Cudjoe, President Mahama spoke “like a mere contestant” in the upcoming elections instead of convincing Ghanaians on why the NDC deserves another term in office.

In his estimation, the president was letdown by his “speech writers”.

He said this on an Accra based radio station on Friday.

“I would have wished that the speech was much bolder, and when I say bolder I mean the President spoke as if he is now actually contesting an election.

I would have hoped that the President was going to tell us that he is going to dedicate his life to fighting corruption while in office; we needed to know what he has done in order to further that objective... But I think the speech writers failed woefully and failed the president. Because the President is in power now, he ought to be saying that I have done this and then I am going to do this”, he added.

According to him, the president's particular interest on education indicates that education has become the driving force in this year’s election.

“The details appear to me to be heavily tilted towards education, which points clearly to the fact that education has become the front line issue”, he added.