The majority of the ceremonies that the President and Vice President attend, according to National Democratic Congress (NDC) Chairman Johnson Asiedu Nketia, are politicized.
He claims that the majority of events he has gone to where a government delegation is present have turned out to be planned for NPP supporters.
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“It is not just the national holidays. Actually, it has spread to almost all social events where the President or 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 questioned whether such partisanship should be used in the planning of national events.
“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.
Speaking about an encounter at a Bawku festival where the vice president and former president Mahama were present, 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 continued by saying that when he attended the burial of his former Parliamentary colleague, he received a similar reception.
He claimed that the NPP attendees at this funeral did not allow for the announcement of his donation. As a result, he pushed his way up to the podium to announce himself.
Mr. Nketia pointed out that this trend was not present when former President John Agyekum Kufuor was in office.
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Recall that on March 6, former President Mahama declared he would abstain from the national ceremony in the Northern Region because it had become politicized.
He claims that the event has evolved into a “party jamboree” and that, despite the current financial crisis, there was no need to pay for this year’s celebration.
“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.
