The Chief Executive Officer of the John Agyekum Kufuor Foundation, Prof. Baffour Agyeman-Duah, says ex-President John Mahama’s ‘Do or die’ comment won’t negatively affect Ghana’s political stability, just as then opposition leader, Nana Akufo-Addo’s ‘All die be die’ remark didn’t cause any problem in the country.

Speaking on Citi TV‘s #PointofView program, Prof. Baffour Agyeman-Duah however cautioned the leaders of the country to work towards strengthening democratic institutions to ensure Ghana doesn’t find itself in a situation of political instability in the wake of the recent political uprising in Guinea.

“I don’t think what I am saying means that we cannot be affected by that (military coup), we are Africans, that is why I said that it is dangerous to even categorize yourself as different because the same forces that are influencing development in these countries are the same forces that we have here.”

Prof. Agyeman-Duah made the remark on the back of a statement made by former President John Mahama during his ‘Thank-you’ tour in the Bono Region, where he said the opposition National Democratic Congress will treat the 2024 polls as a “do-or-die” affair.

The former President and other leading members of the opposition National Democratic Congress have justified the comment, whereas, the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) and other civil society organizations, have condemned it.

“As for former President Mahama’s statement, that shouldn’t worry us. After all, the current President [Nana Akufo-Addo] made a similar statement and that didn’t change anything… So I don’t take it seriously, but on a more serious note, we shouldn’t let down our guards. We have to continue strengthening our institutions,” Prof. Agyeman-Duah said.

My ‘do or die’ comment is an idiomatic expression; there’s nothing to retract – Mahama

Following pressure on him to retract and apologize for the ‘do or die’ comment, former president John Dramani Mahama insisted that he will do no such thing.

He said the comment was on “idiomatic expression” and not a call to violence.

Mahama explained that the comment was meant to be a piece of advice to members of his party– the opposition National Democratic Congress – to urge them to sit up and not wait to be cheated at the polling stations before running to the Supreme Court to litigate election results.