Go and debate Kufuor, Rawlings - NPP replies Mahama

New Patriotic Party (NPP) has thrown another challenge to President John Dramani Mahama to engage one-on-one debate with former Presidents, John Agyekum Kufuor and Jerry John Rawlings.

President Dramani Mahama in an interview with Ovation Magazine and Volta Starr Radio challenged the NPP standard-bearer for a two-man debate.

Such a debate, he said, will afford him the opportunity to fact-check the various untruths being told by Akufo-Addo, a three-time flag-bearer of the NPP.

“I have challenged him [Akufo-Addo] to a debate; I have said bring all these points you are raising one by one and let’s have a debate. Let me and you debate to the Ghanaian public about the points you are raising; inflation, infrastructure and things. But he has ran away,” Mahama told Ovation Magazine.

However, spokesperson of the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mustapha Hamid, says Nana Akufo-Addo, will not accept the debate challenge thrown at him by President Dramani Mahama because he is not ‘qualified.’

Mr. Hamid in an interview last week said Nana Addo cannot engage in a one-on-one debate with Mahama because he has never been anywhere near the presidency before, thus lacking the acumen to effectively face off with Mahama.

Mahama is on record to have said Nana Addo and Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia have no locus to criticise him because “none of them have ever come near the presidency” to question his competence.

“Now, people who don’t qualify to criticise you — how do they qualify to debate you? Is debate not criticism? That’s what it is. We are going to stand toe-toe and then we criticise him and say the economy is not running well… that’s debate. That’s criticism.

“So, we don’t qualify to debate him. So, we take it as such. We don’t qualify. We are not going to debate him,” argued Mr. Hamid.