Sinking deeper in the quicksand

Although former President John Mahama could not make good his promise of joining the NCA gang of four in court, his unproductive effort at politicizing the case by the unnecessary bravado has been noticed.

In a country which is gradually witnessing the strengthening of state institutions such useless and unethical efforts, counterproductive as they are, do more harm to the individual engaged in the mischief.

We do not think that former President Mahama needs such minuses at this time when he is doing all that he can to change his damaged image both within and without the opposition NDC.

We are constrained to fault his team of advisors for not guiding him in his public utterances – the many faux pas not helping his cause at all.

We are unable to come to terms with the reality of his actions especially knowing his background as a man who studied communications: keeping mute when the court date was made public would not have taken anything from the former President.

He needs a cool head more than anything else now to see whether the political misfortune which has enveloped him would show any minute sign of evaporating. While he does not stand any dog’s chance of reversing this, he could maintain the little flesh of integrity left on his name.

As former President, we would have vouched for his love of his motherland, her values and institutions et al. But when he starts undermining the foundation of the rule of law, our judicial system, then we have cause to question his eligibility as a presidential candidate for his distressed party.

What the former president seeks to achieve by inciting his party supporters to, as it were, besiege the court is anything but for a good reason. We recall not with nostalgia but with pain a certain court hearing when NDC hoodlums were commandeered by their leaders to go and disrupt proceedings.

Thankfully the former president’s call on party supporters to go and solidarise or intimidate the court staff did not fly. If his call indeed fell on deaf ears, and we have no doubt to think it did, then he might have to replace the current template he is using to win more souls in his party. It is not only working but irritating the foot soldiers who blame him for the woes of the party.

Even the founder of the party is not enthused with the man who took the NDC to opposition so humiliatingly because after all, he foresaw the fate and warned. Mr. Rawlings had his day when he cold-shouldered Mr. Mahama at the function to mark the 25th anniversary of the fourth republic last week. The image went virile and expectedly becoming a subject of street discussion.

Mr. Mahama might decide to turn up at the court to support the NCA gang on the next date. Who knows? If he does, he would have left us in no doubt that he does not have an open mind in the case under review.

He had earlier dared the President to have him arrested for the DKM debacle. Interesting but he would have done better had he pointed at other subjects such as the Ford saga and the assorted cases of conflicts of interest. Let him ask those who have to see their doctors thrice a week how it feels to breach the financial laws of the land.

Former presidents, as statesmen, must not ‘talk by heart’ – to apply a Ghanaian expression. They stand to lose this status if they are unable to conduct themselves as such.