Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Mustapha Gbande, says the party’s return to power is rooted in lessons drawn from the 2016 defeat and a renewed commitment to completing projects started under President John Dramani Mahama. Speaking on Joy News’ PM Express, he described the earlier transition as a national setback.
“We realised that in 2016, Ghanaians made a mistake. The NDC made a mistake by not standing by President John Mahama to deliver on his vision for this country,” he said.
Mr. Gbande argued that the change in government eight years ago created a development gap that Ghanaians felt immediately. According to him, the discontinuation of infrastructure and social policies launched under Mahama became evidence of a disrupted growth trajectory. “After his exit, we saw the vacuum, we saw the gap… we couldn’t continue a good project, a good policies of John Mahama, be it roads, hospital projects or school projects, we abandoned all of these things,” he stated.
He explained that the desire to revive these initiatives became a central motivation for energising the party’s grassroots and leadership. He credited civil society and sections of the media for what he described as principled advocacy that sustained public confidence in the NDC’s comeback. “Now we owe it to the civil society, the media, who stood also for what is right, not what is political, but what is nationalistic,” he noted.
According to him, the party’s renewed cohesion, disciplined organisation and belief in Mahama’s leadership formed the basis for its electoral performance. He emphasised that the NDC’s victory reflected a clear alignment between its leadership, rank and file and national expectations for continuity and stability in policy.
