While president in 2013, the now former president of Ghana, John Dramani Mahama, concluded that Ghanaians suffer from myopia.
The former president explained that people no longer remember the achievements made by his government.
He spoke in jest in Accra.
Read the full story as first published by GhanaWeb but sourced from radioxyzonline on Sunday, December 15, 2013, here:
President John Dramani Mahama says “Ghanaians have very short memory,” which makes them easily forget about the achievements made by his administration.
The President, in jest, told a congregation in Accra at the inauguration of the Revival Restoration Centre of the Assemblies of God Church at Roman Ridge, Accra, on Saturday that Ghanaians easily forget how far, how much progress has been made in the country vis-à-vis their present circumstances.
Using the energy crisis that hit the country this year to buttress his point, Mahama said: “The energy crisis is solved. We don’t remember the darkness we were in and so we’ve put that behind us and we’re looking at what the other challenges are”.
According to him, while the crisis persisted, Ghanaians were constantly on his case and ridiculed him by creatively replacing the traditional way of greeting with a coined phrase (“y3 ma mu dumsor ooo”) that elicited a response (“yaa Mahama”) that directly blamed him for the crisis.
The Akan phrase, “y3 ma mu dumsor ooo” can loosely be translated as “have an erratic-power-supply-filled day” and the response “yaa Mahama” loosely means “by courtesy of Mahama”.
President Mahama said it is important for Ghanaians to appreciate how far the country has come as far as addressing development issues is concerned.
He said despite the difficulties of his first year in office, he was nonetheless grateful to Ghanaians for standing by him.
“…I want to use this opportunity to thank all Ghanaians for the cooperation we’ve had in a very challenging year. We’ve had strikes, we’ve had problems with the economy; the deficit, and above all, we’ve had an election petition for almost eight months of the year; the economy slowed because everybody was focused on what was happening in the Supreme Court, but God in his faithfulness has seen us through all these”.