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Opinions of Tuesday, 1 November 2016

Columnist: Michael Jarvis Bokor

Truly, President Mahama has a big heart

Samira Bawumia Samira Bawumia

Folks, it is slightly more than a day since news reports blaringly said that Samira, the wife of the NPP's Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, had insulted President Mahama as useless and incompetent.

She did so in the presence of the NPP's Akufo-Addo and many high-ranking party officials, none of whom saw anything wrong with her line of politicking on that score to condemn or rebuke.

None have reacted in any way either to suggest that they are unhappy at her invective against the Number One Citizen of Ghana or that they would make their campaigns issue-based. Tacitly, they support her, all coming at the time that Akufo-Addo claims that he will not base his campaign for the Presidency on insults. Yet, he will not bat an eyelid when any NPP campaigner uses insults to campaign for him. And even in his presence!!

And in Samira's case, insulting President Mahama as "useless" suits the search for voter support to put Akufo-Addo in power. Her invective has taken the NPP's rogue politics to a highly despicable level. Known for bandying about their new-fangled most favoured pejorative term of "incompetence", they have now gone beyond reasonable bounds in tarnishing the image of President Mahama. But the voters already know what President Mahama is, compared to or with Akufo-Addo, especially.

Samira's insult says a lot, especially when no one in the NPP has seen anything wrong with it to condemn. I find her insult as the most despicable to have come from the NPP camp thus far (more so, from a Fulani woman and a Muslim expected to respect a man and to defer to him as the head of the household) just as many cultured Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians do too. Clearly, Samira and her backers are uncultured and see nothing wrong with her disparaging the President of Ghana as "useless". Really disgusting!!

A useless President who has won the hearts of millions of Ghanaians because of his accomplishments? Do these NPP people see what happens wherever President Mahama goes? Of course, threatened by his popularity, they will choose the cheapest means to attempt undermining him, which is what Samira has done.

Indeed, President Mahama has a really big heart to soak up such brazen effrontery. I won't tolerate that disparaging affront, especially given the fact that our democracy has better means for political mobilisation than gross insults. I would have moved to get her roasted alive. Steel must cut steel at that point.

Of course, the word "useless" is really strongly negative and anyone calumniated with it won't be expected to take the insult as coolly and calmly as President Mahama has done.

No President anywhere in the world will act the way President Mahama has done, which goes further to portray him as a democratic and tolerant leader needed by Ghana in our time.

This frontal attack on him serves the NPP's purposes but definitely detracts from its worth, after all. It is clear that by this singular misstep, Samira has harmed the NPP more than added anything to its kitty for Election 2016.

I have heard comments all over the place to suggest that she over-stepped bounds and hurt the NPP by going the way she did. If anybody is to insult President Mahama as "useless", it shouldn't be this Samira, a mere nobody who has nothing to recommend her except being attached to the loquacious, celebrated liar called Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia. A marriage that would have ended in smoke because of her conjugal infidelity had sane heads not intervened.

But the fact that no one in the NPP cabal has reacted to her brazen calumny of the President speaks volumes. Should we be surprised? Aren't they of the same mentality?

In the meantime, we serve notice that we will enter her closet to bring out all the trash therein. And there is much to prove that she is the most USELESS among the wives of politicians seeking political power, whether at the Parliamentary or Presidential levels. Such a sexpot has no moral justification to insult the President of Ghana just because the NPP is dirty enough to create the platform for her to do dirty politics. Election Day is not far off. Truly, President Mahama has a big heart.