Election 2024: Mixed reactions over Mahama’s ‘Do or Die’ comment - AM Talk on Joy News (9-9-21)

[Music] so a number of the newspapers have captured this comment on the um on the front pages and actually in the newspaper in the newspaper so the daily dispatch and we have post up and everything saying stop beating war drums and invest in polling agents and uh then there's also this term i do or die is different from equifados all diabetes die that's uh for president john muhammad saying that and then benefiting again is saying mohammed's warmongering do or die comment on necessary okay but we have in the studio with me allah who's mp for tamale north welcome thank you to the show the last time you were you're on zoom and i record we're doing we're having a conversation about bongo yes yes supposed to open it that's it we're done with that i still have not had my supply though ah why don't you go there yourself and then dr assassin has also joined us versus hello dog all right you don't go he's right good morning good good morning to my good friend suhini thank you dog good morning okay maybe i'll start with you the what do you make of the comments from former president john muhammad do or die and he says that he's put it in context he's not actually calling uh it's not a call to arms he's just saying that let's just ensure that we do everything at the polling station so we don't have to end up in colorado you make of the comments and the condemnations that are coming yeah um if you look at a comment actually it's very unfortunate unfortunate in the sense that you know politics is not a contest um let me put it this way politics is just a contest of ideas you go to the political playing field and you throw out ideas your messages and if they resonate with people they give you their mandate it is also a referendum of the work you have done previously that is if you've got an opportunity to rule the country so um if you look at it from this perspective then you realize that uh it's a very unfortunate comment uh you can justify put all manner of interpretation on it but remember that you are communicating to the ordinary man on the street all right so the way you put out your message will elicit a type of response either for positive or for negative you may have a different intention when you talk to you know people but the way you communicate can create problems but you see israel my worry as a student of politics is that this idea is not new in ghanaian politics it's not any time we go for elections people come out with all manner of comments in temporary language language that is not fit for our society in order just uh to to equip people in line and get votes and win power um this idea for me is not new from all diabetes and the rest of it like ghana will bend ghana will turn into liberia and all this and we as a country must do so such that at what point did we go wrong and the point is that there are a lot of things that we have not done right that has given birth to death and one is that is the failure of our society to deal with these issues head on what do i mean by this every time i go for elections or such statements come out we come out one to rationalize two to you know at the end of the day we glorify these people with votes and uh they get away with us so you realize that uh we don't punish enough to deter these issues what is more is that when we have such statements we don't have people from uh within the political parties to condemn it and it gets on it gets on it gets on it gets on so at the end of the day yes if you need political power then you believe that let me turn out something so that at the end of the day who knows i can be successful get votes and all that one problem if you look at john muhammad's statement one of the problems that has led to this is the shooting incident in some of the areas we saw in the last election for me that is a very worrying signal worrying in the sense that we've had a lot of problems since 1992 in our electoral politics from violence to uh ballot snatching uh to you know the use of macho to intimidate and harass ordinary voters and all that and we have kept quiet to this at the end of the day because the political actors they benefit from this whoever emerges victorious uh these matters are swept under the capital so it gives some people the the courage the opportunity uh to uh you know create problems for us so um if you look at the the last election the shooting incident for me the danger is that we have introduced a dangerous variable into the electoral equation from all the the the the abilities i've talked about with regards to elections of this country we are now saying that yes and certain constituency people shoot and kill people and results are declared these are things that send wrong signals to students of politics seriously and that for me is a warning so any language any action that really get us in this mood i feel very very uncomfortable that is why my call for uh you know some measures comes in handy one that we need a body that in the first place we need a period that we can call you know a period of elections where uh it will allow for campaign and all that so that off-season we do what we're supposed to do and then we save this country of all manner statements that will not benefit the society too we need a body neutral of government that will define the standards or set the standards for political parties to follow so that uh intemperate language certain behavior and all that will be checked so that whoever engages in us will be named and shamed okay it is the way to go yeah if we reflect on this soberly yeah i'll come first to look at the merits and the mechanics how this will actually work this body that you're calling for but i want us to listen to the former president and hear exactly what he said so that we can put it in in proper context and then we can also get a reaction from last century so he has the president former president has said what he said and then he's insisted why and explain why he said what jesus said he says is he standing married he's not retracting so let's let's listen to him and then we'll come to you rebecca in english in english our idiomatic expression omo mufi school in terms of idiomatic expressions that's i say do or die means a critical assignment you have and you must do that needful or perish and so you must do the need for hsa and this media and training and co supreme court there was a young police station in the coalition center here and so i don't retract the next election for nbc is going to be a do or die effect all right so dr kamiya san santi you you heard him is it the the die bit that came in or isn't it a case where you're having his political opponents deciding that okay if he said this for purposes of equalization let's highlight it so that it would he would look bad as well and that's why we're having this conversation in the first place yeah israel the this is one of the tips but there is one that i listen to that starts with i mean entry and a polling station did they do or die you don't have that if you don't have that you can play it and we all listen to that okay so from that context for me yes we have that and so if you want that was the original comment that he made it was after he had made that then he came back to explain no i'm looking at the original let's look at the original so for you it's original that plays in proper context okay so let's let's let's get the original let's hear the original and then we can come back to continue the conversation all right so we're trying to to get that uh it probably take a a few a few seconds and and then we can bring that to you and then i'll come to you alastair sweeney is in the studio and he's uh he's eager to also have his take on it and i come to you a lesson yeah so would would yeah so what's impression we're going to we're going to hear um that take the original tape and then dr san santi wants to put it in context okay we we we can't get it immediately but i want to come to you um alas and sweeney so that you you make the point all right all right um once again thank you israel let me say good morning to the u.s especially the very good people of the tamale north constituency and let me also acknowledge some of the points that dr santi made yes it's good that we think of the way forward but in this country i have said repeatedly that it seems to me that sometimes we in the public space tend to admit to the wrongfulness of a conduct or speech only when the ndc repeats a similar not the same a similar conduct or statement originally made by the you know npp that is when we tend to admit because i recall i have been in the media with you for a while that even when the old diabetes comment was made some people did not even want to talk about it i mean it was unethical to even highlight it it was condemned by many by many years by some not many but by some by some especially those who condemned it were tagged but the point that i'm making is that it seems to me that most of the time we find those of us in the public space find our voices are strong voices of criticism of a conduct or speech and see the wrongfulness of that conduct or speech only when the ndc repeats a similar one but i am thankful to god that similar is not the same and so it's important that we make the difference similar is not the same and it's not about what you and i or what john muhammad is saying about do or die it's about what the english man says about you or die okay it's not about what you and i are saying about we have the we have the video now so let's listen i was just hoping you wouldn't interrupt me sorry at the polling station i see in a polling station their bed will do or die ah may cast all that be died the red will die the right thing must be done all right so doctor kwame assange you you've heard it and uh but i'd let alassan uh make his point yeah so the point i was making is that we need to acknowledge that what is wrong is wrong we don't have and we should be bold enough to condemn it we should not wait until a similar conduct is repeated by the ndc then we can now get our confidence to lump them together and speak boldly we should be able to distinguish also between what is uh similar but not the same so for example i have said somewhere that former president muhammad is a thinker he's a thinker and that is why he was very careful in this tape when he said i did not say although i would die i said do or die can i finish so let us not interpret it the way we want to interpret it the first thing we do is what were we taught in school about do or die and a dramatic expression what is the meaning of that in english language and the dictionary defines it now the dictionary definition of do or die as the english man defines it not what john muhammad wants to mean or what you want or what do you think he wants to mean what the english man defines it to mean is to persist even if death is the result not to kill not to persist to kill but to persist even if death is the result so how is that a violent a call to violence you could say maybe it's a call to suicide but not a call to kill not to attack anybody because to persist even if death is the result and former president muhammad in that same tape says that we will ensure that the right thing is done we don't want to cheat the npp but we will insist that we are not also cheated okay so let's let's let's do the persistence bit yes you painted a picture of yes it means persist yes even it means at your at the peril of okay so you've gone you're insisting that maybe the electoral commission the electoral officer has counted the results that the ballots and everything else and they're saying okay this is the result and insisting that no no no that's it's not the result i want you to count maybe a hundredth time and the electro officer says no we can't count 100 times they insist and they're taking the ballot boxes away and then you come in and say no i'm not going to allow you to move the ballot boxes and then there comes a confrontation are you saying you should still they should still persist yes they should self-assess because you see the framers of our constitution that's not the law the law says that israel has a problem at the training station israel you allow it to go through the coalition center israel the framers of the our constitution says that we must persist even if at the peril of our life to defend the 1992 constitution true or false it's is that a call to violence but that's not the way you must persist in defense of the constitution even at the peril of your life is that a call to vote but it means that you must follow laid down procedures yes but you must the let down procedure includes so are you i'll give you two no let me give you two examples practical examples of the last elections in sauvignon and sabzi in savilugu almost at the end of voting in kardia a polling station in the constituency an electoral officer with a background known to the people being npp in the community ishmael qashi who was not registered at that polling station got up and tore the presidential ballot paper voted for nanaku fado but unfortunately at the time he was dropping into the box the ndc agent noticed thanks be to god he did not drop it in the presidential box he dropped it in the parliamentary box he raised the alarm and the electoral officer ishmael kwashi said that's the phone does anybody know that he voted for ecuador so if you listen to the end of the story you will know just listen to the end of a story be patient so he raised the alarm and then the electoral officer excuse was that he did not have time to go to where he registered to vote so he just decided to cast his ballot here one does the wrong thing the polling agents insisted that the right thing must be done and that the ballot be opened the ballot box be opened so that that ballot he put in be removed and glory be to god because he made a mistake and dropped it in the parliamentary box it was easy to determine the ballot that he dropped in because everyone else dropped presidential and presidential books and parliamentary and parliamentary books now it turned into you know confusion obviously the security came they couldn't resolve it they moved it to the police headquarters in saviligo the ndc agents insisted they count they collected all the results from the other polling stations except that one the nd mpp people were now in the lead without that box and so they decided to call for the nullification of the results of that place and insisted that the electoral commissioner should nullify results from that place they shouldn't even count they shouldn't open the boxes and count them the ndc executives in the constituency together with the regional executives persisted and said that wasn't going to happen it it led two days of protest i'm talking about two days of protest the final one was at the police headquarters in the northern region where the police commander together with the electoral officer agreed to open the boxes and sort the ballots out they opened it and they found one presidential vote the one that the electoral officer dropped in which was voted mpp they took it out because that was a foreign material and counted the ballot the remaining ballots in the box it turned out that the ndc won that constituency by 99 votes as a result of that persistence that is persistent to the life at the peril of your life if they had waited to feel but feel letters and go right now the npp is in court but the ndc mp is in in parliament okay i said too if you permit me the second one is absolute and it's interesting zab zugu they did not notice the overvoting at the polling station but they noticed the overvoting at the coalition center and so they protested it turned into violence the security came and sacked everybody and took the ballot boxes into a room a safe room locked it up the ndc agents also went to lock it with a padlock so that they could secure it even as we speak today the ballot boxes in zamzugu is still under watch by the national security and the ndc agents they go there every day to check in but guess what they blinked and so in the dark of the night after they locked their ballot boxes the district chief executive together with the original the deputy regional minister who was the candidate at the time took the coalition papers with the electoral commission officers to an unknown location in tamil where they did the coalition alone and i'm sure you saw those videos of the deputy northern regional minister being declared in the presence of security men an unknown location in the dark of the ninth they did their coalition and declared him he's sitting in parliament the ballot boxes are still locked up in zubzugu because they blinked they did not persist to the peril of their life they blinked and we we lost their absolute seat in parliament if we had not gone into that chamber with a do or die attitude speaker bagman won't be a speaker today speaker batman wouldn't have been a speaker and you saw what happened that night and they attempted by carlos ahinkura to even run away with what the vedic of the day was so they so that is that is what we must understand we shouldn't interpret it to suit whatever agenda we seek against the former president we must go first of all to the definition of the phrase he used and the definition of that phrase is clear that we must persist the framers of our constitution and joins us to persist and if we do not see those who wrote the constitution and we don't not see anything wrong with the call for us to defend the constitution with our life as we don't describe it as a call to war in fact maybe something basic you know when you started this program you promoted a very good you know project a very good project of people supporting to do the classroom project a classroom project very good work but it's basic you said something that i even find more dangerous than all this discussion that we are having the politicians may have failed you that is very common on the lives of average ghanaians who find do or die as a threat but the politicians may have failed you what replacement do you have for the politicians the military okay but if i said the politicians may have failed you so don't i'm not calling ah i'm not calling for now you are defending yourself let me interpret or not let me interpret it that you are saying the policy because once you begin to succeed you've been bringing in convincing the people that the politicians have failed i'm not convincing that the west is dangerous i'm not convincing that the people are out there they say it all the time and it's one complaint unless you indicate to yourself it's one complaint that people keep making all the time but the politicians are again that raises another so they say the politicians are physically the politicians i personally understand i'm just making the point that there are certain things we don't rather ignore that are more dangerous to the future of our democracy than this you know attempt to you know uh define do or die in a way that it will suit whatever agenda and look you hear people like dr scientist say that um yes people can misunderstand it that means he doesn't misunderstand it because he knows the meaning but the fear is that people out there may misunderstand unfortunately we just have it yes can i finish on the point that i'm making you see because the comment is yes we understand do or die is an idiomatic expression we understand it's a phrase we understand it means persist to death but people can misunderstand it and my question is if you understand it israel because you are educated enough to know the meaning and to know what exactly it it means and you have a platform like this why do you think uh or assume that the average man doesn't deserve that knowledge you know why don't you rather educate the average man that do or die should not be misunderstood do or die means what it means why do we have to find ourselves in a situation where you're having to educate people about do or die let me bring in so why do we have to find ourselves in a situation where we want to assume that they don't understand doctor assassin so as you heard allah say he says well all the former president is saying is that it's asking the people to persist even at the peril of their lives and he's equating it to what the constitution calls us to do yeah he's right there's no doubt about that that vigilance is the price of liberty but we do all these things within the framework of the law for me all that i'm saying is that look we can make statements but let us be measured and tempered so that what is more important is the the the our programs our policies that we throw out you see we can play uh we can defend it the level to the level that we want to do but the stack reality will dawn on us one day if you don't take we are not careful and handling these things very very well let us please just one second all right so uh dr juan sansante has a a bit of a technical challenge i'm sure he would resolve it in a bit and then he can uh join us so he's trying to result i suspect he has to do with your power your power going down is right yes hello you have to plug in your charger i'm back yes i had to do that forgive me that's okay uh but what yeah what i was saying is that look let us do the right things so that we get our electoral process always intact i have mentioned that all these statements all right are born out of the fact that we had some shooting incidents and all that and the way as a society we responded to it all right since 1992 seen a lot of you know activities that have gone against the electoral process and the last election we move it to another height we're shooting and all that the boat dive and it looks as if the state have forgotten about this there's a dangerous variable that we have introduced in into the equation and you know it affects the the political fortunes of the scan so for me as a student of politics i can look at some of these things and look at them very very carefully let us build institutions that we can be confident in that institution you remember [Music] recently uh ndc of electoral reforms one of the twitter security where we involve electoral commission in the security matters and um by law uh i uh added something to it that we even want to add the political parties to it because there is a cambodian experience which is there for us to look at where the security people electoral commission and the political parties sit at the table discuss the security measures as to how they protect the electoral process and they review it from time to time why can't you look at some of these things because look my worry also is that any time we are going for elections these problems keep coming and we sweep them under the carpet yes when the elections are over we we we don't think about them anymore but i tell you if we want to build a democracy that will stand up the test of time these are things that we need to work against because one major problem with young democracies is the issue of a reversal where democracy reverses you know where people believe that democracy is not paying or giving them the dividends that they want then they want to resort to something that you and i don't want to know or hear and for me that is what the state must look at right i have said that when you look at this statement and that of what all that we die and all that and others such as what god will bend can we turn into liberia you and i have had a lot of some of these things let us be measured and tempered and then build the society that all of us will be proud in but that is also to say that we need to build institutions that you and i will trust institution that you know they will stand the test of time institutions that will preach using the law so that whenever somebody crosses the line that person can be handled uh the way he ought to be handled all right now mr sweeney so you've heard what dr jamie sassante is saying essentially yes some of these comments can be inflammatory and so maybe we could avoid all of these that's the that's the point he's making and if the former president has said that if he would just uh retract and apologize we'd all move on and would have the country in peace and not have to worry about all these explanations and trying to justify you know is there other risk of repeating myself that would have been you know an easy conversation to have like i said earlier i find it intriguing personally that you know we sometimes begin to get the boldness and the courage to have these conversations only when the ndc repeats similar things we knew in our hearts all along we're wrong or we're you know um condemnable i recall even all diabetic statesmen some stations didn't want to play them play their voice they didn't even want their voice to be held i recall i mean for whatever reason they talked it shouldn't be probably they didn't think that it should be propagated any further exactly well perhaps that was that was a good justification but like i said today the ndc makes it similar and i keep using the word similar and and and saying that they are not the same ndc makes a similar comment it is now okay and fine for us to bring the two together and have some you know tea party if perhaps if our approach to all die be die you know was not the way it was perhaps um we would have better understood do or die as what it means here we are we understand do or die is an english phrase we understand that it means persists adept i mean even if it's at the peril of your life to achieve you know um an outcome that is desirable it's not like to do anything bad we understand but our conversation is based on our fear that some people will understand then what is the use of the knowledge we have in understanding when we can't convince people to understand that this is not a call to violence this is not a call to kill this is a call like we are enjoined by the framers of our constitution to defend the constitution even at the peril of our life indeed it is repeated in our national anthem that we must resist what is wrong with all our might with all our will and that is exactly what the former president says and i've just given you clear examples of how that worn as the sablugu seed right and how in the course of blinking it lost us there's absolute seat so tai chi mansat is a known case everybody has who has followed the case this far knows what happened in turkmen south people persisting and indeed getting killed as a result of their persistence even as we shy away from condemnations of those who shot and killed those innocent people who only persisted and insisted that the right thing be done we think that we should all become do so why is it a safe to say that some people have a plan to do wrong so it is a threat to their plan when you call on people to insist on the right being done even at the peril of their life it's a threat to their plan to do wrong all right let's we'll have to move on but there'll be more on this conversation having to do with their all die be die and do or die in a state of play state of play it comes up today at 2 30 and we'll have events mensa we have raymond aqua winston and while they'll be coming together to look at it in detail

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Id: LSFE0MvUE_Y

Length: 35min 13sec (2113 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 09 2021