Investigative journalist, Manasseh Azure Awuni has advised former president John Dramani Mahama against succumbing to pressure to resort to violent means of protesting an outcome of the elections which may not sit well with him and his party.
According to Manasseh Azure Awuni, Mr. Mahama will be denting his reputation as a tolerant and peaceful leader if he allows himself to be influenced into using illegal means of contesting an outcome which he may be displeased with.
In his assertion, while it is important for the former president and his party to contest the election results if they believe the results are fraudulent, they must do so within the law.
He therefore urged Mr. Mahama to seek redress at the appropriate quarters if he and his party have reasonable grounds to believe that the outcome of the election is fraudulent.
“If the election does not go your way, don’t allow yourself to be pushed to soil your reputation as an extremely tolerant and peaceful leader.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that you should condone injustice in order to impress others,” he said in a post on social media.
“If you have reasonable suspicions of electoral fraud and a reasonable amount of evidence to back the suspicions, channel them to the appropriate quarters. Those quarters, no matter how flawed they may be, are certainly better than violence.
Violence is like a bad rain. It does not fall on the roof of only your enemy,” he added.
John Dramani Mahama and his NDC have since the polls ended been claiming that they have won majority of seats in parliament and are poised to win the presidential election.
At press conference in the evening of Tuesday, December, 2020, Mr. Mahama alleged that the government had deployed military to Constituencies where his party won in an attempt to overturn the election results in those Constituencies and warned that he and his party will resist such attempts.
However, projections by some media houses suggest that the governing NPP and its presidential candidate will win the elections.
