Much as I labour to enumerate his numerous matchless achievements, many more stir at me for attention, and I would like to continue with the catalogue.
In his quest to develop Ghana, his administration passed many bills which including Technical University Act, Act, 2016 (Act 992). This turned polytechnics to Technical Universities.
He passed the bill to establish the University of Environment and Sustainable Development (UESD), the Chartered Institute of Taxation Act, 2016, the National Commission for Tertiary Education Bill, the National Accreditation and Qualification Authority Bills, 2015, the Ghana Book Development Council Bill and the Chartered Institute of Bankers Bill, 2015 amongst others.
There are more achievements during his tenure. For example, Ghana was the first country in Sub-Saharan Africa to have met the MDGs to cut extreme poverty by half in relation to the Millennium Development Goals initiative, which ended in 2015.
Ghana also made substantial progress in reducing the prevalence of HIV, increasing access to primary education for girls and boys equally, and also reducing hunger. These were contained in a release from the Office of the Resident Coordinator of the United Nations.
Again, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, in 2012, Ghana was 53rd in the world when it comes to our country's capacity to retain talent; by 2016, Ghana was 48th. People with talents staying in this country at the time meant that the Mahama-led government did some things right, and that our country was a fertile ground for the development of her citizens.
What many Ghanaians are yearning for is for him to come to office for the second time to implement his Economic Transformation and Livelihood Empowerment Programme (ETLEP) which will end the current economic challenge, and create jobs to bring great relief to our people.
Bringing my article to an end, something interesting happened few weeks ago which I want to share with you. A lady called into my favourite radio programme, and asked the DJ to play the song “Haja Skol”. The DJ told her the song she is requesting for didn't exist, but she persisted and insisted that the song exists and must be played. She was taken off the line. It later occurred to me that she was referring to Steve Wonder’s “I just called."
President Mahama if you are reading this article, the people of Ghana have missed you very much, and have asked me to request "Haja Skol" for you.
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Former president, John Dramani Mahama