John Mahama
Just the other day, Dady (pronounced “Daddy”) Kay, also known as Mr. Quaison, the host of the Atlanta, Georgia-originated Klasik Radio program of which I am a regular talking-head or panelist on most Sundays, from 4-6 pm, whatsapped me a brief Youtube-like clip in which former President John Dramani Mahama was being interviewed by a European television program host or journalist about the impact that he thought his government had made on the lives and fortunes of Ghanaian citizens about two-and-half years into his tenure as substantive Chief-of-State of the august Democratic Republic of Ghana. I deleted this video clip of the interview which lasted about a minute or two; so I don’t recall the television station or establishment of the interviewer, who looked to be a middle-aged man of European descent. And I don’t intend to go back and retrieve and/or replay the aforesaid audiovisual clip.
But what, nevertheless, struck me as quite telling of his self-admission of gross administrative incompetence and his abject and total lack of any vision for the development of the country, was his vehement and rather loud insistence to his interviewer that two-and-half years at the helm of the Presidency, having also done some three-and-half years as Vice-President of Ghana, the former National Democratic Congress’ Member of Parliament for Gonja-West, in the Northern Region, still found it to be woefully inadequate a time for any leader to significantly transform Ghana’s economy. Needless to say, this observation at once exposes the Russian-trained University of Ghana’s Bachelor’s Degree Holder in African History, I presume, for the insufferable hypocrite that Mr. Mahama is globally known to be. More so, vis-à-vis his caustic carping of the scarcely 23-month-old Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), for being practically AWOL on the economic transformation front.
If, indeed, no Ghanaian leader can significantly transform the country’s macro- as well as micro-economy within two-and-half years, then why has the democratically and condignly ousted Mr. Mahama been incessantly and relentlessly criticizing what he terms as the extremely slow-paced transformation of the economy of Ghana by the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party? Indeed, contrary to what the former Atta-Mills’ political right-hand man would have Ghanaians believe, the fact of the matter is that a critical mass of socioeconomic transformation has been taking place in the country in the nearly 24 months since Ghana’s former Attorney-General and Justice Minister auspiciously assumed the democratic reins of governance as Chief Resident of Jubilee House. One only needs to read the article captioned “John Kumah Writes: The Goodies in the 2019 Budget for Entrepreneurs and Businesses” (Modernghana.com 11/16/18), in order to fully appreciate some aspects of the job-training and entrepreneurial enrichment programs taking place under the auspices of the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP), which is ably and progressively headed by the author of the aforementioned public-relations piece.
For example, the NEIP Chief Executive Officer (CEO) highlights the fact that in 2018 alone, some 7,000 startup entrepreneurs were trained by the Akufo-Addo Administration, with some 1,350 of these being presented with “bankable [or profitable] business plans” and being provided with the necessary direct seminal financial support to grow their fledgling businesses. Compare the foregoing to the Mahama-initiated program of “Dumsor” or the criminally erratic energy supply, largely created as a result of his indescribably gross administrative incompetence, that caused nearly half of all privately-owned medium- and small-sized businesses to effectively collapse or go under, as it were. An unconscionable and mischievously smug President Mahama would later accuse those whose hitherto successful enterprises he had so cruelly and incompetently destroyed of not being creatively savvy enough to have devised more innovative and productive means of sustaining and developing their businesses.
This is the incorrigible moral reprobate of a Ghanaian citizen who would have the nation’s electorate grant him a second chance to ruin their businesses and make their lives the sort of ungovernably miserable hell that he once put them through, and which all well-meaning and progressive Christians are advised by Jesus Christ of Nazareth to avoid at all costs, if they crave eternal tranquility. What is incontrovertibly clear is that Mr. Mahama wants to be given a second shot at the Presidency so that he could mischievously take undue credit for the remarkable achievements of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party, whose development policy agenda he is infamous for shamelessly cannibalizing, from the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA), which he apocalyptically bungled, to the recently implemented fee-free Senior High School policy initiative, which this impudent Social Darwinist has sworn to destroy in the highly chance of this certified nation-wrecker’s being returned to the Jubilee-Flagstaff House.
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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
November 17, 2018
E-mail: [email protected]