The demonization of moral standards: Why my heart bleeds for Ex-President Mahama

I indeed remain an unrepentant critic of former President John Dramani Mahama. I can also venture to state in all honesty that I hate him not, and cannot and would not in any way bring his name into disrepute in the name of political gimmicks.

But that being said, it is neither an insult on my part to stress inexorably that an individual has no competence to hold a particular position nor slanderous to assert that someone is devoid of the qualities requisite for effective conduct of a position.

However, it may be slanderous or libellous to refer to someone as a womaniser if it turns out to be untrue. It is so because we are talking here about the individual’s hard earned reputation.

For instance, I won’t take it as a character assassination if you tell me I am only a good lawyer but incompetent to be an effective communicator.

However, I will take an exception to the reference of a dictator or a womaniser, because it would be a malicious and unjustifiable harm to my reputation.

Let us therefore remind the chorus bandwagon that while it is wrong to refer to someone as an unrepentant womaniser, it is also disgusting to malign an innocent person as a mindless dictator, for instance.

It is against this background that I am so mindful of the ongoing vineyard news about former President Mahama’s alleged extra marital affairs.

“There is this notion of me being a womaniser which is certainly not true”. “I have had children outside my marriage, but I am at peace with my wife. She understands the circumstances in which it happened” said President Mahama (Daily Guide/peacefmonline.com).

In the grand scheme of things, a womaniser is “an individual who pursues women lecherously or passionately”.

Deductively, a womaniser is a liar, and a liar may be susceptible to dodgy deals.

In theory, therefore, one can't keep several concubines, unless you are an inveterate liar. In other words, you have to engage in a lot of 'propaganda' to have your way.

More so, how do you provide all your numerous concubines with financial support if you have 'a shallow pocket'?

I am afraid the likely scenario is for the individual to resort to dubious practices, including bribery and corruption to support income to feed the abhorrent habit of keeping several concubines.

“Womanisers, especially those who have no qualms about fathering children out of wedlock, are far more likely to succumb to the criminal act of bribery and corruption to sustain their financially consuming addiction” (Okoampa-A. K, 2012/ghanaweb.com).

There is a correlation between womanising and corruption. It is against this background that I am expressing concern about the womanising innuendoes being directed at President Mahama.

It would be recalled that when President Mahama was first selected as the running mate of the then candidate, late Mills in 2008, Mr Mahama’s official curriculum vitae released at the time indicated that he had nine children. However, the CV was allegedly withdrawn and replaced with a new one stating seven as the number of his biological children (Daily Guide/peacefmonline.com).

The preceding puzzling and seemingly weird omission rightly generated a nationwide gossip over the actual biological children of former President Mahama.

There were contrasting figures from the vineyard news. While some vineyard branches delineated twenty three children from ten different mothers, other vineyard branches mapped nineteen children from nine separate ladies and so on.

All the same, in his interview with the Africawatch, President Mahama made it clear that he had had children outside his marriage, but his wife understands his extra marital affairs (modernghana.com).

The former president’s father, “the late Emmanuel Adama Mahama, a former regional minister in the Nkrumah regime had 19 kids by various women. The president admitted in the Africawatch interview” (Daily Guide/peacefmonline.com).

“Yes, we were many siblings from different mothers, but one of the things he did was to bring us together and made sure that every single child of his was put through school”.

“He gave us the opportunity,” former President Mahama said.

“However, in the case of the president’s children, they are living apart, perhaps making it difficult to know one another” (Daily Guide/peacefmonline.com).

Somehow, former President Mahama’s admirers would strangely contest that ‘crab does not bring forth a bird’.

The Mahama supporters, however, would argue forcefully that after all, the President’s father, “the late Emmanuel Adama Mahama, a former regional minister in the Nkrumah regime had 19 kids by various women”.

Well, this is where I disagree with President Mahama’s diehard admirers. My disagreement is predicated on the fact that the President’s father was a devoted Moslem, whose religious beliefs entitled him to marry up to four women.

On the other hand, President Mahama has pegged himself off the Islamic principles and sought refuge in Christianity, where polygamy is forbidden.

Indeed, there are not many ‘saints’ around these days, but the fact of the matter is that we cannot portray ourselves to the whole world that we are ‘saints’, meanwhile we are worse than Lucifer himself. After all, doesn’t the holy book say “let your light shine in the dark?”

Other sympathisers however insist that if indeed President Mahama is indulging in extra marital affairs, it is his private matter and no one has the right to intrude into his private life.

Nevertheless, my response to that schools of thought who hold such a view is: Mahama is the former President of Ghana and the 2020 flagbearer of the largest opposition party in the country, and therefore every patriotic Ghanaian has every right to be concerned with any bad name that would tarnish not only Mahama’s image, but the whole nation.

In the end, for me, I have no business digging into President Mahama’s private life. A womaniser or no womanizer, it is up to him as a former president of Ghana and now NDC’s 2020 flagbearer to explain to Ghanaians and the whole world whether it is morally right to allegedly cheat his wife by keeping several women alongside his wife.