Former President John Dramani Mahama has asserted that patriotism, which in the past was a dominant trait among Ghanaians has become deficient in recent times.

He made the remarks at a lecture to open the National Democratic Congress’ Institute of Social Democracy at the party’s headquarters in Accra on Friday.

In the view of the former president, people now think about their families first and relegate national issues that require patriotism to the background. “…Nationalism and patriotism have become very deficient in Ghana today.

Absolutely nobody thinks about the country first; we all think about ourselves first, our families second, our parties third, maybe, our communities fourth and Ghana comes a distant fifth or sixth or even tenth.’’

He also disputed claims that the Institute was set up to brainwash people adding, “Contrary to widespread perception, institutes like this are not institutes for indoctrinating people.

The perception in the First Republic was that the ideological institutes were set up to brainwash and to become ideologically robust of the governing party. But this is not the case.”

According to him, the school will serve as a source of knowledge not only to party cadres, but for people who share the same ideology “to gain ideas of leadership, nationalism and patriotism.”

“If you look at the curriculum of the ideological institute, it contains programmes of leadership, how to lead in a community, it contains programmes of party activism, it also contain programmes of community self-help, it contains programmes of nationalism, patriotism – how to be patriotic to your country,” he added.