President Mahama calls for consultations before making national decisions
President John Dramani Mahama on Sunday apologized to Mrs Theodosia Okoh for the trauma she might have gone through as a result of the mistake in renaming the National Hockey Pitch after late President Atta Mills.
He also called on political leaders to do a lot of consultations pertaining to decision making on national issues.
“The President said late President believed in modesty and humility and would therefore have refused that honour, even in his grave.
President Mahama made the appeal when he joined hundreds of congregants at the Robert Mensah Sports Stadium for a thanksgiving service to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of late President John Evans Atta Mills.
The church service was also attended by, Mrs Ernestina Naadu Mills, former first lady, Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur and his spouse, Mrs Lordina Mahama, first lady, the leaderships and members of all the local churches in the country and beyond.
It also attracted Ministers of state, Members of Parliament and politicians from all walks of life, and choirs from various churches in the country, as well as members of the diplomatic corps.
The President added: “I wish to emphasize here that the National Hockey pitch shall continue to be called the Mrs Theodosia Okoh Hockey Pitch today and in the coming days.”
President Mahama appealed to Ghanaians to allow the late President’s virtues of humility, decency, civility, peace and unity guide them to re-adjust their systems in society.
He stated that the late President also abhorred corruption and injustice and his administration would continue to adhere to those virtues to eliminate all forms of malpractices.
Most Reverend Professor Emmanuel K. Asante, Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church, Ghana, called on Ghanaians to use the humility of Late President Mills to re-examine themselves in the kind of lives they were leading in society.
He said as religious people, Ghanaians should not see life as war, but ways of gratifying “The Soul” in humility, peace, harmony and in honesty without shedding any blood.
Reverend Asante, who is also the chairman of the National Peace Council, appealed to Ghanaians to use the death of President Mills “to bridge the political and ethnic polarization that was rearing its ugly head in the Ghanaian environment.”
He said the adherence of those divisions had devastated other African countries over the years “and Ghanaians needed to avoid those violent situations that had further impoverished more Africans in our neighbouring countries.”
Source: GNA