Ex-president John Mahama says the incompetence campaign waged by the then opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) dealt a heavy blow on his government.

According to him, the campaign, even though baseless, was so effective that even members of his own party started to believe that he and his government were incompetent.

That, he said, partly led to the defeat of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) in the 2016 elections.

“They kept shouting incompetence, incompetence, incompetence until our own people started believing that we are incompetent,” he said to a flood of laughter that swept through a forum he held in London.

“Our own NDC guys think I am incompetent. These guys must be some super people. Now, look at the super. That is super incompetence,” he said, adding the NDC became complacent at some point in the 2016 elections.

He also attributed the defeat to internal squabbles within the grassroots of the party.

The 2016 election was a campaign against power outages, corruption and economic hardships.

The then-running mate of candidate Akufo-Addo, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, and his wife, Samira Bawumia, waged a flawless campaign part of which was to describe the then president John Mahama as incompetent.

“When I see you, I see incompetence,” Samira said on countless occasions anytime she was presented with a platform to speak.

Her husband was witty and with the poor performance of the country’s economy at the time, Dr Bawumia spared no effort in reminding his predecessor government how incompetent its officials were.

Having spent over a year in government, ex-president John Mahama said this was not the competent government the NPP promised in opposition.

“The NPP rolled out a very strong propaganda campaign. And of course, they had the media helping them.

He said had the NDC won the elections in 2016 it would have been difficult to govern the country.

“…God had a hand in what happened in 2016. If we had won the election there is nothing we will do that Ghanaians will appreciate. They will think there was a better alternative to us,” he said.