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Atik Mohammed has lambasted the Akufo-Addo government over the prevention of Ibrahim Mahama and his company Engineers & Planners to undertake a mining activity in Nyinahin forest reserve.

Atik Mohammed believed the government was only set out to sabotage Ibrahim Mahama because of his personality.

Speaking to sit-in-host Nana Yaw Kesse on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo', the suspended PNC General Secretary was disgusted that the government has refused to allow Exton Cubic Group Limited, a company that has engaged Engineers & Planners to mine bauxite in the forest reserve.

According to him, there is an attempt to clamp down on Exton Cubic Group just because Ibrahim Mahama is involved.

“Partisanship is the bane of Ghana’s problems. Look, there’s politics in armed robbery, loan grants, security; everything you’ll do, people will always find political in fact partisan twist to what we do in this country...

" . . You can just tell this is an organized attempt to clamp down on Exton Cubic simply because of the name involved . . . These are the things that don’t inspire investor confidence,” he said.

Atik noted that Ibrahim Mahama and his company's documents to mine in the forest were approved by the Environmental Protection Agency and other appropriate authorities, and so wondered why the sudden U-turn to deny him permission to the forest reserve.

“ . . If it is on the principle of let’s not destroy our forest reserve, I am all for it. And when we start with this, we should go to all other mining companies that are mining in forest reserves. That way I can say that yes, government is really committed to protecting our fast depleting forest cover. To halt it and indeed improve on our forest cover is something I will support on any day. But we cannot be selective and picking in who do we say that he should stop mining in forest reserve and who should be allowed to continue. For me, look, if Ibrahim commits a wrongdoing, I’ll be the quickest to comment on it with all the vehemence I can command but on this occasion, I am suspecting partisanship,” he stressed.