President John Mahama has finally
broken his silence on his alleged extra-marital escapades that apparently
resulted in a string of children outside his marriage. President Mahama denied
being a womaniser in an interview with New York-based magazine Africawatch,
recently at his residence at Cantonments.
“There is this notion of me being a
womaniser which is certainly not true. I have had children outside my marriage.
But I am at peace with my wife. She understands the circumstances in which it
happened, and I have been a responsible father to my children,” said the
president. President Mahama officially put the number of his children at seven,
even though he did not mention the number in the interview.
He lives with four boys who he had by
his wife Lordina and a baby girl adopted from the Osu Children’s home about two
years ago. It is officially accepted that the President has also fathered other
kids outside of his marriage with an unknown woman and had a boy before his
marriage to Lordina. President Mahama has for a long time been at the receiving
end of a raging controversy over the number of children that he has actually
sired.
Incidentally, a curious ‘omission’
further fuelled this perception when he was first selected the running mate of
the then candidate Prof. John Evans Atta Mills in 2008. Mr. Mahama’s official
curriculum vitae released at the time indicated that he had nine children.
However, the CV was quickly withdrawn and replaced with a new one stating seven
as the number of children he had borne.
The incident raised a lot of eyebrows,
questioning the credibility of the information regarding his children. New
Patriotic (NPP) parliamentary aspirant for Ablekuma south, Ursula Owusu on an
Accra based Oman FM, said she could swear that the information provided by the
President could not be accurate because she personally knew a lady at Dansoman,
a suburb of Accra, who had borne three children secretly for the President.
Several other people seeking anonymity have volunteered information to Daily
Guide about the President’s unbridled fecundity.
Sources told Daily Guide that
President Mahama had several children by some other woman, pieces of
information the sources could however not confirm. The President’s father, the
late Emmanuel Adama Mahama, a former regional minister in the Nkrumah regime
had 19 kids by various women. The president admitted this in the Africawatch
interview. “Yes, we were many siblings from different mothers, but one of the
things he did was to bring us together and make sure that every single child of
his was put through school.
He gave us the opportunity,” he said.
However, in the case of the president’s children, they are living apart,
perhaps making it difficult to know one another. He admitted that he was privy
to the raging conspiracy around his alleged extramarital progeny, blaming it on
his political opponents. “Somehow, it is a perception that has played well into
the hands of political opponents. So it has been flogged over and over again.
But those are some of the occupational hazards you face as a leader,” he
stated. President Mahama said he took after his dad. “The way my dad looked
after me is the same way I am looking after my children. I have been there for
them,” he said. peace fm
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