Mahama is intellectually exhausted

His condescending attitude towards Ghanaian voters reeks of nothing short of the inexcusably nauseating, such as when during his most recent campaign tour of the Eastern Region, the home turf of his main political opponent, President Mahama described Nana Akufo-Addo as one who spoke to pressing national issues like a spectator (See “Akufo-Addo Behaves Like a Spectator – Mahama” Starrfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 10/25/16). This is rather insulting because the former New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa South has spent more time fighting for the restoration of democratic governance in the country than President John Dramani Mahama has spent literally reducing the country’s hitherto prosperous and robust economy to rubbles.

Nana Akufo-Addo has also been intimately involved in the crafting of Ghana’s Fourth-Republican Constitution. As well, Akufo-Addo has served as Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, as well as Ghana’s Foreign Minister, the latter of which cabinet portfolio afforded him the enviable opportunity to serve as President of the UN Security Council. And so when he rudely calls his far more progressive, productive and experienced political opponent a “spectator,” it is quite obvious that Mr. Mahama has somebody else, other than his main political opponent, in mind. Perhaps he has himself in mind.

And here, also, must be quickly added that it was Nana Akufo-Addo, and not Mr. John Dramani Mahama, who introduced the first mobile-phone company, Novotel, into the country. Such feat is not the hallmark of a “political spectator.”

Mr. Mahama also claims that the job of being President of Ghana is so difficult that it needs “someone strong.” It is quite obvious that the sort of “strength” the former Rawlings Communications Minister is alluding to is the raw, muscular strength that truck and cart pushers, otherwise known as “Kayaya Boys,” require to do their jobs. But, of course, you and I, dear reader, know fully well that the Presidency of Ghana is no “Kayakaya” job at all. Rather, the Presidency demands a quite different kind of strength called “Intellectual Puissance” and “Creative Imagination”; and it is precisely these rarefied qualities that are sorely lacking not only in the current Chief Resident of the Flagstaff House but, indeed, most of the key operatives of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) at large. And it is primarily because of such woeful dearth of intellectual and creative imagination, also called “Vision,” that the country finds itself in the sort of Stygian economic mess that it is in presently.

Indeed, if the Presidency were about raw muscular strength, as Mr. Mahama would have eligible Ghanaian voters believe, the Gonja-West native would not have been the first choice for the job by the standards of even his own party; rather, Mr. Kofi Portuphy, the National Democratic Congress’ National Chairman, would have been a far better and more perfect fit. We need to also remind President Mahama that even as the Chairman of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) scandalously failed to do the other day, the Presidency is not about the awarding of no-bid, or sweetheart, contracts to foreign businessmen and women in exchange for handsome payolas – such as the Ford Expedition SUV allegedly given him by Mr. Djibril (Gibril) Kanazoe, the Burkina building and road contractor. That is plain theft and wanton thievery, and it has absolutely no place at the Presidency.

Which is also why he ought to be meted the sort of sneering contempt that he inescapably deserves, when Mr. Mahama promises voters that he intends to spend a remarkable part of his second term, should he be returned to office, fighting official corruption. The fact of the matter is: When was the last time that any Naked King successfully delivered on his promise of supplying his subjects with lavish bolts of cotton prints?

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