Editorial: President Mahama not absolved from Mills' Failures

With barely less than five months
to the 2012 election, Ghanaians are regrettably coming to terms that the many
lofty promises of jobs and wealth made to them by what started as a
Mills-Mahama government was nothing more than propaganda.

Now led by former vice president
John Dramani Mahama as a result of former President Mills’ demise, the NDC
still believes it can continue to fool everyone with yet another vain promise
of changing and bettering the lots of Ghanaians with just five months to the
end of their term as they tag their new leaders “the game changer”
What game is President Mahama
going to change in a matter of five months that he could not do in the last
three and half years of a government where he served as the Head of the
Economic Management Team. Did he just acquire the skills and what it takes to
effect the game change or he always had and hid it but hungered for this
‘golden opportunity’ for him to unleash it? Surely the NDC cannot take us for
an audience in a magician’s theatre!
The new president should stop
deceiving himself that he has a magic wand to transform the lives of Ghanaians
within five months, a feat himself and his team have failed to achieve in over
three and half years.
He certainly has a lot of work to
do in tackling the numerous problems that the country is currently faced with
and his competence is in doubt judging from how poorly the economy has
performed since the inception on the NDC 3 government under his leadership. He
should take lessons from the performances of Goosie Tanoh and Dr. Kwesi Nduom
in Ghana’s recent elections. These two made a lot of noise but at the end, they
turned out to be all about media hypes and campaigns.
President Mahama and the NDC
should spare us their concert and focus on completing the tenure of his former
boss. Ghanaians do not have to search hard to find evidence of the sufferings
that this administration has brought on us all.
It is preposterous for Mr. Mahama
to attempt exempting himself from all the poverty that his party and personal
leadership of the economic management team have unleashed on Ghanaians. He was
and has been part of the whole and as such should be liable and take full
responsibility for whatever credit or shame that has come to be associated with
the NDC 3 administration.
As head of the economic management
team, what has Mahama done to stem joblessness and the increasing poverty? And
as chairman of the Police Council, what has he done to stem armed robbery and
the general insecurity?
It has become very clear to every
keen observer that the late President was always sick and was hence not
practically in charge of running the country. The question then is: who has
been in charge all the while? Constitutionally and logically, that mandate fell
on former Vice President Mahama. And if he is today having been sworn in as
President, wants Ghanaians to believe that he has never been responsible and
never in charge of running the state in the stead of his ill boss, then he is
even a weaker leader and leaves the question who was then in charge?
The truth is that the NDC team has
failed to improve on the lots of Ghanaians and rather engaged in propaganda.
And these failures cannot be resolved by PR gimmicks like they have continued
to deploy since the birth of this administration.
Mr. Mahama must by now know that
PR and propaganda does not provide jobs. It does not put food on the table. It
certainly does not pay for rent, health care, school fees and does not resolve
the challenges faced by the Ghana Cedi.
Ghanaians are expecting President
Mahama to keep focus and steady the ship just as the late President promised he
would. We have been used to peaceful transitions and we cannot demand anything
less of him in his short completion term as President before, during and after
elections and hands over to the next government.