Private legal practitioner, Maurice Ampaw, has commented on his promise to leave the country in the run-up to the 2024 general election if John Dramani Mahama becomes president again.
Speaking in an interview on GTV on Tuesday, February 4, 2025, Ampaw said that his promise was just political talk because he wanted former Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, who was the presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), to win the election, and not Mahama, the candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC).
He added that even though Mahama won the election and is president again, he is going nowhere, contrary to his earlier bragging pledge.
“NDC has won, and you know during the campaign, I was on the side of Bawumia, and I did a lot of harm to the NDC and I made a lot of political statements. ‘If Mahama wins, I will leave for Togo.’
“I would not go; I would not go because Ghana is far better than Togo, but it is part of the political game. I was trying to say that it’s not possible for Mahama to come. As I’m sitting here, I don’t even have a passport. I’ve never travelled before,” he said.
He added, “I’ve been in Ghana for the past 57 years of my life. For me to say that I’ll leave for Togo was a political gimmick, trying to ginger the people (to) let’s make it happen. And then at the end of the day, Mahama proved to me that everything is possible.”
He added that he does not regret the statement he made because it was just “political talk.”
What Maurice Ampaw said:
Ampaw had vowed to leave Ghana if former President John Dramani Mahama won the presidential election.
According to him, he saw what Mahama, the then-presidential candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) for the 2024 elections, did during his reign as president between 2012 and 2016 and would not allow himself to be governed by him again.
Lawyer Ampaw, who made these remarks in an interview on Kumasi-based Angel FM on Monday, September 10, 2023, added that he would be better off living in neighbouring Togo than allowing himself to be ruled by Mahama again.
“I would not allow Mahama to rule over me for the second time; I would go to Togo. I’m telling you, mark it on the wall. I would leave the country.
“… if Mahama wins, I will go and live in Togo for four years. What is Mahama coming to do in government again?” he asked in Twi.
Ampaw explained that he did not want Mahama to be president again because he could only be in power for four years, and he (Mahama) had previously said that four years is not enough to transform the country.
He alleged that Mahama would use his second coming to plunder from the state to pay his huge debts, which he had accrued from political campaigns since 2016.
“Mahama himself said that four years is not enough to do something good for the country, so what is he coming to do? He knows that the problems we have in Ghana today cannot be solved in four years.
“He is also in serious debt. He has not paid the money he used for the 2016 campaign, the money he used for the 2020 elections,” the lawyer said.
