Akufo-Addo carries his chair around for security reasons — Dr. Mahama clarifies

Dr. Kabiru Mahama, Technical Advisor, Office of the Vice President

The Technical Advisor at the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Kabiru Mahama, has clarified why President Akufo-Addo carries his chair around.

President Akufo-Addo has been slammed for dedicating a V8 to be moving his chair around.

The main opposition, the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and some political experts have been complaining that carrying the chair around in a V8 vehicle is causing financial loss to the state.

But according to Dr. Mahama, those agitations by the opposition are just baseless propaganda, explaining that the President carries his chair around for security reasons.

“This propaganda about this presidential chair ought to stop because we know that the president goes with his handlers and presidential staffers. If a president for national security reasons..." he noted.

Speaking on Accra-based Metro TV's Good Morning Ghana show on Tuesday, November 1, he further explained that as President, whatever he wears, eats and sits on is in line with the National Security advice.

The host, Randy Abbey asked, “Are you justifying taking a special chair to a radio studio?” Dr. Mahama responded: “I am justifying the fact that what the president eats, what the president wears, what the president sits on must be in line with the National Security standards.”

On why the chair is not carried along with the President when he travels abroad, he noted, “Let me tell you why it may not be applicable outside Ghana, one; systems elsewhere are different."

He continued “to suggest that this chair is having its own car and is being fueled when it can easily be placed in the boot of a car and go anywhere they want, you try to make a lot of noise about it.”

Dr. Mahama refutes the claim that the President is simply obsessed with luxurious lifestyles, citing an instance when American President Joe Biden drove to Queen Elizabeth's funeral in his own fleet when other Presidents boarded a bus.

It wasn't a luxury, he said, but a security protocol he had to follow in that situation.