The 2020 Presidential candidate of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramani Mahama says he does not regret his “do or die” comment and will not retract.
The ex-President in an interview on a Techiman-based radio station on Tuesday stated that the NDC has learnt lessons from the 2020 polls that elections can only be won at the polling station for which reason the party will not let its guard down.
Mr Mahama’s comment has drawn strong condemnation from a section of the public who say the former first gentleman’s comment is incendiary and likely to incite the party’s youth during the next general election.
But following the flak, Mr Mahama speaking on the matter again on Sunyani-based Moonlight FM said he simply used an idiomatic expression.
“…they don’t understand do or die. Do or die is an English idiom. In Africa, we have many proverbs and we sometimes don’t say things in the straight format, we use proverbs. In English, we have idiomatic expressions. Those who left school early don’t understand idiomatic expressions. Do or die means a critical assignment you have and so you must do the needful or perish.
He added:“What I mean is that the NDC should not wait and go back to the Supreme Court, whatever has to be done at the polling stations and collation centres must be done. And so I don’t retract, the next election for NDC is going to be a do or die affair. I’m telling all our party executives that you must be at the polling station to make sure that the right thing is done. Don’t abdicate your responsibility at that level and expect that after somebody has stolen the election we’ll go to Supreme Court to see if they would turn the election for us, they won’t do it.”
Source: Kasapafmonline
