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President John Dramani Mahama was caught in an uncomfortable situation when he realized that some pages of his speech were missing.

The President at the tail end of his speech as the out-going Chairman of ECOWAS, paused and started flipping through the pages of his speech; he noticed that the last two pages of his speech were missing.

“Where is my speech…I am missing certain pages in my speech…” he tells his colleague Heads of State and continues speaking without his speech to formally open the 47th Ordinary Session of ECOWAS.

Speaking to the issue during a panel discussion on Wednesday’s edition of ‘Kokrokoo’, Abdul Malik Kweku Baako, Editor in Chief of the New Crusading Guide newspaper said: “first of all it was clear that it was an embarrassing situation…I am sure the country was embarrassed momentarily. The President himself would have felt embarrassed… “

Some political pundits have criticised the President for not looking through the speech to realise that two pages were missing. However, per Kweku Baako’s checks, the he (President Mahama) had read through the speech and had given the go-ahead for it to be printed.

“It looks as if the problem occurred with the photocopies. It occurred at the very last moment. The President would not have known. He had no way of knowing that there were missing pages; …I am sure the President would have wished that it didn’t happen…he is a victim of this huge embarrassment that has been inflicted on all of us…

“It will be good for government to apologise to the nation for this embarrassment not because it was deliberately instigated…and beyond that in order for it not to re-occur, those involved would have to take responsibility. It was sheer negligence” he said.

Click the audio to listen to the rest of his submission