NPP Flagbearer, Nana Akufo-Addo
Fellow Ghanaians, say what you wish, “if the lessons of history teach us anything it is that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us”. It is unfortunate that many intellectuals of our dear country appear to have sacrificed their intellectualism on the altar of tribal bigotry, and placing their thumps on autopilot every other election, voting candidates for the part of the country they come from. And by intellectuals, I mean every academically certified Ghanaian who refuses to consider the quality of leadership of candidates but votes with their emotions!
Just in the last election, President Akufo Addo at the launch of the NPP’s Campaign Manifesto in 2016 said, “In this election, we are faced with an opponent with unrestrained and unprincipled access to state resources, with apparently unlimited cash, who have confidence that they can buy your vote. If they cannot, they will try to bully you. That is the opponent we have in this election.”
Fellow Ghanaians, what are we seeing today four years later after President Akufo Addo took the mantle of leadership of this country? "Unrestrained and unprincipled access to state resources."
Few days ago, armed robbers stormed the West Mamprugu to have their share of the money the Vice President went there to distribute!
Is it not refreshing that the table of leadership could turn in such a jiffy to expose the shenanigans of the NPP as a “Now Plunderers Party” which have been in the unholy business of devouring the vaults of our national treasury at such a breakneck speed within four years they accused the former President of? No wonder Abraham Lincoln once said that, “nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character give him POWER. When I look at president Akufo Addo and his limitless slide show of abuse of office at the face of Ghanaians, I throw a punch in the air and hit my chin against my chest in confirmation of what Lord Acton is said to have said, “Power corrupts, and absolutely power corrupts absolutely”!
President Akufo Addo even went ahead to quote 1 Samuel 17:45-47 by speaking what David (God’s peace be upon him) is quoted to have said to Goliath: ‘You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. Then all this assembly shall know that the Lord does not save with sword and spear; for the battle is the Lord’s, and He will give you into our hands.’
In Shaa Allah, the battle is still the Lord’s. Because the coming of President Akufo Addo is sorely regrettable, a huge electoral miscalculation on the part of Ghanaians. It is nothing but a reflection of what Ernesto Guevara, a friend of Fidel Castro of Cuba, had observed. The former President of the National Bank of Cuba said that “Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn crueler”!
Literally whining to become President, the man (President Akufo Addo) who was to become the nightmare of Ghana’s future, had the following words to beguile gullible Ghanaians to their present situation of uncertain future: “They have more money than us, but the battle is the Lord’s; They have more outboard motors, more roofing sheets, more laptops, more sewing machines to give away, but the battle is the Lord’s; They have more giant-sized billboards than us, but the battle is the Lord’s.”
Eventually, the awaited political Methuselah concluded his flamboyant speech by saying that, “In truth, however, fellow Ghanaians, we are many and they are few and the battle remains the Lord’s.”
Fellow Ghanaians, history they say, is more than the path left by the past. Because it influences the present and can shape and change the future. Four years ago, a man who propounded his own concept of competence, President Akufo Addo, which largely hinged on excessive borrowing, has suddenly become the King Kong of borrowing.
Today, the man who was transmogrified, transfigured, and transfixed at once, into Angel Gabriel (the Holy Spirit) if not deputy God above all blemish and who appeared basking in supernatural competence of all-knowing accolade, has become a colossal disgrace to our nation. His yardstick or gauge of competent leadership is a classic case of shooting oneself in the foot! His benchmark for good governance defined by Vice President Bawumia as “the exposé of Exchange Rates due to weak fundamentals”, has come back to boomerang him spectacularly!
The fight against corruption that necessitated the creation of the most useless portfolio of our history, the Special Prosecutor, has been a saga of sorrow since its infamous inception in 2018! There’s nothing in the national kitty as our collective and commonwealth, yet Ghanaians have no the foggiest idea of the whereabouts of the 140-something billion cedis grandfather Akufo Addo has borrowed on their behalf!
The guinea fowls which supposedly flew to Burkina Faso or Guinea the Guinea fowls’ hometown, is without gainsay, far better than the sudden disappearance of billions of cedis borrowed in the name of every Ghanaian into the bottomless pockets of political Mafias of Akufo Addo’s presidency. Such unprecedented daylight robbery of Ghanaians must certainly never be forgiven!
Today, unless you are an uncritical tribal gladiator or one of the few Ghanaians who are beneficiaries of the current official robbery going on who have vowed not to displease the fingers that feed them, every honest Ghanaian who is not a fool, knows corruption under president Akufo Addo has been legendary with a greater tendency to make even Jesus of Nazareth blush!
Four more years for grandfather Akufo Addo means mortgaging and literally robbing from the future of this country. By which I mean, destroying of our educational system, destroying our environment with his infamous SynoHydro goddam deal. It means, taking Ghana back to HIPPC. The death told we are witnessing presently is the tip of the iceberg. Give president Akufo Addo four more years, and Ghana would have become a slaughter house. This man is “small but with a large heart”: big enough to accommodate every political acrimony. Please we must not give president Akufo Addo the chance to avenge.
Four more years means, sufferings of administrations of Free Senior High School increases, and shortchanging of Ghanaian parents continues unabated; four more years means only party “food-soldiers” would get to go Teacher and Nursing Training Colleges (TNTCs) because of gravely lopsided payment of allowances. It means, in the next four years, a huge number of Ghanaians would have been denied access to TNTCs. How many Teacher and Nursing Trainees the country would have lost. Due to the populistic agenda of one man?
Fellow Ghanaians, the jet-speed with which our cash has been devoured by this gargantuan government under the watch of President Akufo Addo is an eloquent testimony that, these boat-load of ministers and their ringleader, have not good intentions but most appalling sinister under their sleeves. Let them go with the money, their second agenda for which they are sharing their loot, from us to us must not see the light of the day in God’s name!
Four more years means, in the next two to three generations Ghanaians shall live a life of debt and working harder though, more than us, to pay for the consequences of one man’s greed!
If Ghanaians compromise their intellect on December 7 and allow President Akufo Addo four more years, it means Ghana would curl up in smoke on the political pyre in self-demolition and flagellation condemned to a lifetime servitude. It means more collapse of businesses and job replacements mistaken as job creation would continue to escalate.
Four more years of Akufo Addo means more dubious financial sector clean-up exercises. Which means, more lockup funds of depositors are just the beginning. Because the government’s empty sloganeering of being Beyond Aid would cause it to continue to rely on indigenous banks for borrowing to undertake fraudulent projects through which chunkiest of our meagre resources are siphoned! This election is the deciding factor of our boom or doom as a country, forever. Ghanaians have probably the last chance to decide the brighter future of their children and grandchildren and great grandchildren and great-great grandchildren by voting out President Akufo Addo. He is a danger to our medium and long-term successes.
And Ghanaians do not need a sorcerer or a political witch Doctor on December 7 to tell them which candidate has found comfort in corruption and who are determined to obliterate their children’s future for consolidation of their selfish gains and not our gains.
For once, let’s vote for the rescue of Mother Ghana from a very corrupt and iron fist of a savaging foe! It is a “communal labor”, it is a rescue mission!
Long Live Ghana,
God Bless Us All.
Abdul Hakeem Iddrisu
(The Young Prof.)