A leading member of the Bawumia campaign team, Nana Akomea, has refuted claims by Bolgatanga Central Member of Parliament (MP) Isaac Adongo, that Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia has denigrated his father.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) lawmaker is said to have accused Dr Bawumia of denigrating his dad, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, when he recounted how he engaged in menial jobs to survive.
Delivering his victory speech after being elected as flagbearer of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Bawumia said “My work experience includes a stint as a farm-by-day worker (with my good friend Dr. Abass Awolu (who is now in the civil service) during holidays in my secondary school years, to driving a minicab (taxi) in London and cleaning dormitories in Canada with friends like Richard Oppong of Vancouver (as I studied for my PhD) to make ends meet. God has brought me this far.”
Dr Bawumia’s father, Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia, was a member of the first government led by Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and also served in the regime of the late Jerry John Rawlings as Chairman of the Council of State.
Therefore, the Bolgatanga Central MP considers it an insult for Alhaji Mumuni Bawumia’s son, the Vice President, to have stated that he engaged in menial jobs to survive as a student.
“Dr. Bawumia’s father was a Minister of State in the First Republic for the entire northern territory. In fact, he became the Minister for Agriculture and Cabinet Minister at the time. Is he suggesting that his father was an irresponsible man and didn’t take care of him? So tell him to stop painting his father black,” Mr. Adongo stated while addressing journalists on November 8, 2023 in Accra.
This is what Nana Akomea, a former Information Minister, corrects.
“At every opportunity, Dr Bawumia has had to talk about his father, he had extolled his father’s virtues, and thanked his late father profusely for the loving upbringing for him and his siblings, the latest occasion being last Saturday, November 4, 2023, at the Accra Sports Stadium when Bawumia assumed the flagbearership of the NPP,” he wrote on Wednesday, November 8.
“All of us heard the tribute he paid to his father.
“Many of us who had opportunity to study abroad had one time or the other engaged in casual, temporary jobs like cleaning, restaurant, or supermarket checkout work to supplement our personal housekeeping expenses.
“That does not mean our fathers back home were uncaring. Indeed, these undertaking were usually done at the blind side of our fathers, and only satisfied our desires to increase our incomes by our own efforts.”
The STC boss said the move by Dr Bawumia to engage in such jobs should rather be seen as a mark of humility.
“It is also a mark of the man, that he was humble enough, despite his family circumstances, to engage in casual, temporary work opportunities to supplement his scholarship funds, etc.
“Indeed, it is those life experiences that have grounded Bawumia as a humble, down to earth person, despite the high positions he has occupied in his adult life.”