President John Mahama: I’m No Womaniser

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, saying it is “certainly not true”.

President Mahama denied the story 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’m 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 two other kids outside 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 However, the CV was quickly withdrawn and replaced with a new one stating seven as the number of children he had borne.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 Party (NPP) parliamentary aspirant for Ablekuma South, Ursula Owusu, on 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 women, 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 government, 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.

It is recalled that the NPP presidential aspirant, Nana Akufo-Addo, has severally been accused of also being a womaniser. As in the case of Mahama, the accusers have so far not named a single woman with whom either man had extra-marital affairs. However, the allegations and finger-pointing have continued unabated.

Indeed, the allegations of Nana Akufo-Addo’s womanising by his opponents seem to have died down slightly since Mahama was sworn in as president last July, allegedly owing to his baggage.

Is it a case of “man pass man”, DAILY GUIDE may dare ask, in this keenly contested presidential case?

Akosua Puni And Michael Essien

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