My previous piece “John Dramani Mahama Conned by His In-House Mafias” saw striking correspondence from all political divide but I think this article will unseat the previous work. Ride along with me please.
My name is Kofi Asamoah-Ababio, president of Amass Ghana, a civil society organization aimed at promoting peace. I speak the truth because I believe knowing and telling the truth oil the cogs of the monotonous grind of everyday life and incidentally, they are the hallmark of good breeding. The gospel according to John 8:32 says, “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”. Truth is often avoidable because it is ugly and unpleasant but unless you are prepared for the anger that comes from disenchantment, keep mute.
Mr. John Dramani Mahama has come under intense scrutiny since taking over as acting president into becoming the substantive president in January 7, 2013. With some political parties and top-notch peoples from all walks of life second guessing his ability to lead the country, though some of these loud voices were pushing their own hidden agenda but make no mistakes, some of these loud voices too had the interest of the country at heart consequently, raising eyebrow.
I recall the political propaganda “spare tyre”, some political pundit’s referred to Mr. John Mahama as a “spare tyre” who will be of no-good purpose and some even went ahead to add pinch of salt to it, announcing his inexperience and inability to man the affairs of the country. I was one of the few peoples who didn’t buy into their propaganda machinery because I believed manning the affairs of the country was not about PHD’s, certificates, degrees or experience.
But a leader with leadership qualities, thus the sine qua non of it all. Odysseus of Greek, Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, Chuko Liang of China and the 35th president of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy who challenged the U.S. to be the first country to send a man to the moon by the end of the 1960s didn’t only gave enlighten speeches. They made sure that, the speeches were given breath, they saw their speeches manifest, they walked their talks… that’s the leadership qualities I’m referring to.
When I talk of leadership qualities, I talk of Nelson Mandela. The man who dedicated his life for the struggle against racial oppression in South Africa. In all the pain, struggles, setbacks, impoverishment and about twenty seven years in prison, as depicted in his autobiography “Long Walk to Freedom”, he eventually triumphed. He is not just a good leader but actually an ideology and he depicts; … triumph of dignity and hope over despair and hatred, of self-discipline and love over prosecution and evil.”
Though I had my doubts about Mr. John Mahama but I still believed in the “benefit of the doubt” philosophy because I also believed experience is not gathered from the bench, you ruck experience only when you are on the pitch. But I must say the actions and inactions of the Mahama led administration have given their detractors fertile grounds to capitalize on the “I told you so” mantra.
I don’t need to be brainwashed or be fed with fictitious propaganda about the performance of the Mahama led administration because I listen to radio, I read the newspapers and to toughen it up, I watch the advert of the green book on almost all the TV channels I lay hands on, so I know pretty damn well about the transforming Ghana performance but what I don’t know is the huge amount of monies that goes into these projects.
I know for a fact that out of the 200 Day Senior High School Mr. John Mahama promised, 5 have been accounted for, the Accra Circle roundabout is ongoing, some polytechnics have been fast-tracked into technical universities, Kejetia ultra-modern market is ongoing etc. please for my readers, I can’t name what I don’t know so if you have interest in the numerous project then I suggest you get hold of the green book, or better still download the pdf format on Google because I have no penchant for comedy.
Mr. John Mahama is performing though, hmmmm, “half a loaf, they say is better than none”. The electorates will decide, 4 years of skyrocketing unemployment rate is like being trapped in the horns of a bull. The bull backs you into the corner with its horns – not a single horn, which you might be able to escape, but a pair of horns that trap you within their hold. Run right or run left, either way you move into their piecing ends and are gored.
Mr. John Mahama is the face of “changing Lives, Transforming Ghana” banners, billboards, flyers, adverts etc. I don’t want to waste time talking about the “how, why, where, what” and the rest but I care about the amount of cedis that’s goes into the advertisements because the huge monies running these adverts are milked from the poor, I mean the poor tax-payer.
Mr. John Mahama is the face of “Changing Lives, Transforming Ghana” agenda, which I believe is perfectly acceptable because his life and that of his families and close allies, has seen tremendous changes and transformations whiles the electorates suffer. My cousin graduated from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in 2006 and an unsuccessful attempt to secure a job in 8 years has now began trading in menial job. He sells ladies shoes at Cantamanto, yet pays abnormal electricity tariffs.
My cousin’s case is not an isolated one because I listen to the news trend, I glance the headlines, and I watch the youth engaging in arm-robbery, I watch the innocent ladies engaging in prostitution to pay for their fees, adding salt to an injury, their would-be employers sometimes take advantage of them, some also are faced with brutalities in the act.
The frequent leak sex-tapes which have become the order of the day is back-traced to unemployment. OMG so when are we going to escape from the chained carcass of an embalmed “unemployment”? The electorates, they say, have the power to seat and unseat.
Mr. John Mahama will be begging for votes to renew his mandate come November 7, but he forgets these were the same peoples he tags as short memory citizens. Philosophers have been speculating on the rules of human relationships for thousands of years, and out of all that speculation, there has evolved only one important precept. It is not new. It is as old as history.
Zoroaster taught it to his followers in Persia twenty-five years ago. Confucius preached it in China twenty-four centuries ago. Lao-tse, the founder of Taoism, taught it to his disciples in the valley of the Han. Buddha preached it on the bank of the Holy Ganges five hundred years before Christ. The sacred books of Hinduism taught it among the stony hills of Judea nineteen centuries ago. Jesus summed it up in one thought – probably the most important rule of the world: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.”
Where is the light? Mr. John Mahama is said to have quoted in his many read speeches and addresses to fix the power crises once and for all, good! We say spare us the nitty-gritty details and fix it because it is becoming a generational thing, more or less like a curse.
A curse collapsing businesses, a curse damaging electrical appliances, a curse rendering the masses jobless, a curse shuttering dreams, yes a curse slaughtering innocent men, women and children, a curse indeed. I am going to ignore the details of a family of five who got burnt because of dumsor-dumsor, I am also going to skip details of a women who committed suicide because their loan-invested shop got burnt.
I am going to ignore the facts of WASSCE and BECE students who were burnt to ash because they had to resort to candles instead of light, I am actually going to ignore the details of a cold-store owner who threw her stocks away, all in the name of dumsor. The reality is too ugly and the solution too painful.
The civilians of this country have succumbed to hash conditions – the blood-sucking dumsor for quite a long time and were willing to manufacture saints and faiths out of nothing once they were going escape the dumsor curse, consequently pursuing Mr. John Mahama’s witch hunt.
AMERI power, K power, FPSO Professor John Evans Atta Mills, Solar Energy, Wind Energy, Hydro-power etc. have been added to the power grid, so the expects say but we are still enjoying the dumsor-dumsor with mind-blowing utility hikes, the job has snowball beyond Mr. John Mahama’s control. “Weak people, said Cardinal de Retz, never give way when they ought to.”
For God and country, Tetteh Quashie had to swallow cocoa seed. For God and country the renowned Big-Six had to go through torture, treacherous and heinous deeds for Ghana to be a better place. For patriotism sake, some of our young men and women had to bone the burden of dastardly acts under Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings able leadership, these people could have flee from their respective homes but they stayed and fiercely fought for their home-land… they stayed because they had these writings inscribe across their heart, “man will hunt us, the gods will curse us but we will love our country”, thus spirit of patriotism.
Osaagefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah is remembered today, not only for liberating us from our colonial master but also for the investment he made. The tough decisions he crafted has save us couple pennies, though he was ousted from his home-land but believe it or not our presidential motorcade still ply the Tema motor way, Akosombo-dam still power our electrical gadgets, the numerous colleges and universities he sanctioned is serving it’s right purposes today etc.
I also believe that, one day Ghanaians will hail Mr. John Dramani Mahama for his unprecedented achievements. But as to whether he will be hailed for good deeds or bad deeds, I can’t tell. “Look to the end, no matter what is it you are considering. Often enough, God gives a man a glimpse of happiness, and then utterly ruins him.”
The electorates should vote base on policies and not because somebody greased their palm with a couple of pennies because words like “freedom,” “option,” and “choice” evoke a power of possibility far beyond the reality of the benefits they entail. When examined closely, the choice we have in the marketplace, in elections, in our jobs tend to have noticeable limitations: They are often a matter of a choice simply between A and B, with the rest of the alphabet out of the picture.
Yet as long as the faintest mirage of choice flickers on, we rarely focus on the missing options. We choose to believe that the game is fair, and that we have our freedom. We prefer not to think too much about the depth of our liberty to choose.
In February 23, 1848 a crowd of Parisians chased out Louis-Philippe because they saw that, he was neither the scepter nor the crown, but the gray hat and umbrella with which he would proudly walk the street of Paris, as if he was a bourgeois out for a scroll. They triumphed, and so shall we. Is Mr. John Mahama’s performance unprecedented that will warrant a second term or abysmal, the decision to make and unmake is left to the electorates. Vote wisely my fellow countrymen.
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