Liars have shorter legs!!

During the Bosnian war, dictator, Slobodan Milosevic ordered the massacre of Muslims in Srebrenica. Thousands of men, women and children perished in that inhuman assault. When the allied forces conquered Slobodan, he was later arrested and arranged before the International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague.

Prosecutors flew in witnesses from Bosnia to testify against Slobodan. One of the witnesses was a man who had all his two legs amputated as a result of the assault on Srebrenica. After his testimony this was what Slobodan had to say about the witness: “Liars have shorter legs”.

President John Dramani Mahama is a liar and he has lied so many times that today, he has shorter legs. He has never been truthful to the people of Ghana and as such nobody takes whatever he tells Ghanaians seriously since whatever he says turns out to be a lie. Take the issue of ‘dumsor’ for example.

The man went to parliament this year to tell Ghanaians the following: “Watch my lips. I John Dramani Mahama will fix it. Previous governments only managed the power crisis but I will fix it by the end of the year.” Those who believed in him, especially the NDC Parliamentarians were not to blame because as the sages say if a blind man says he will hit you with a stone, his feet might be on a stone.

Then Dr. Kwabena Donkor also told us that if he was not able to solve the dumsor problem in three months, he will resign. The three months came and “dumsor” became “dum koraa”. The man resigned honorably. That to me was a sign of a perfect gentleman.

Dr. Kwabena Donkor will go down in the history of Ghana as a minister who promised to resign if he was not able to deliver and surely did resign when he was not able to deliver. We seldom get the type of Dr. Donkor in Ghana. I will continue to doff off my hat for this fine gentleman.

The dumsor that John Mahama, the pathological liar promised to fix has turned into a new story. Listen to Mr. Fixer when he addressed NDC supporters and traders at the Aboabo market in Tamale during his ‘accounting to the peoples’ tour: “Dumsor is not over yet and this year’s power situation is far better than last year’s.

Ghana is going through power crisis.’ Then he continued to embarrass himself before his listeners when he said the following: “Throughout my journey from Upper West and Upper East Regions, I kept looking at the water level of the rivers and I am grateful that the rains had opened up in those parts of the country.

It is from these regions that water flows into the Bui, Akosombo and Kpong dams for generation of hydroelectric power and therefore the situation would become normal”

What Mr. Mahama told his listeners stands to mean that he cannot fix the dumsor problem but only God can fix it for us. Either than that why is Mr. Mahama now relying on the rains to fix the problem? So if the heavens refuse to open up for the rains to continue to fall, do we have to be content with the dumsor?

You see, I have written on countless times in this column that the handlers of Mr. Mahama are not doing him any good. Sometimes I even want to say they are rather “mishandling” the man. The man was made to understand that when the Ameri Power and Karpower arrived on the shores of Ghana, the issue of dumsor will be a thing of the past and he believed them. They did not tell him how much it will cost to power the barges in terms of fuel.

So the man went to parliament to promise Ghanaians that he would fix the problem and received a thunderous applause from the Majority side who were also misled. The truth is that there is no money to buy light crude oil and the country isowning N. Gas millions of dollars.

Nigerians are no fools and neither are they Father Christmas. You owe somebody three hundred and fifty million dollars and when he asked you to pay up so that he could continue to supply you with the product, you went to pay only ten million dollars and expecting him to continue to supply you? Habba, Mahama!

Buhari is having his own challenges with rebellious militants from the Delta region sabotaging pipelines and setting oil fields on fire. You don’t expect him to foolishly pump gas to Ghana instead of saving for the rainy day. That is the naked truth.

Then there was this lie about the revamping of the Komenda Sugar Factory. I want to believe that President Mahama was born too late to see the heydays of that hitherto vibrant factory operating.

Before the establishment of that factory by Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana used to import cube sugar like Bouchon and St. Louis from abroad for domestic consumption. Osagyefo saw the need to establish a sugar factory so that Ghana would stop the importation of sugar in order to save foreign currency.

The great man brought in experts from abroad to test the soil around Winneba, Komenda, Cape Coast etc and see if it would be suitable for the cultivation of the type of sugarcane which would be needed as raw material for the production of sugar.

When the experts recommended that the soil was suitable for the cultivation of that type of sugarcane, Osagyefo started the building of the factory alongside the planting of sugarcane. In fact, he had wisely begged the chiefs to release land for the project.

In those days if you are traveling from Winneba Junction to Cape Coast all what you would see would be sugarcane plantation sprawling on both sides of the trunk road and far beyond. By the time the factory was completed, the sugarcane was ready for use and so the factory started production from the word go. That was how come the Komenda Sugar Factory came into being. The Komenda Sugar Factory continued to operate even during the Acheampong regime only for Mr. Rawlings to take over power and close down the factory and sold it for peanuts.

It was a good idea for Mr. Mahama to bring in Indians to come and revamp the factory but for the sake of propaganda, the President rushed to Komenda to commission the yet to be fully revamped factory amidst pomp and fanfare when a single sugarcane has not been planted.

Because Ghanaians are crying that the unemployment rate is unacceptable the president told us during the commissioning of the yet to be fully revamped factory that seven thousand jobs would be created. And they clapped for him. Barely three days after the commissioning of the factory, was it shut down for what they said was for maintenance.

Then they went around Komenda, Winneba and their environs to buy a few sticks of sugarcane from farmers for trial at the factory and Dr. Goebbels Omani Boamah, the master propagandist went to Winneba to distribute the few bags of sugar produced and told the world that soon the Komenda Sugar Factory will send sugar to our markets.

Today, the Komenda Sugar Factory has been closed down simply because there is no sugarcane to process. So you see why liars have shorter legs? Somebody should show me where I can get made in Komenda sugar to buy for my ‘koko.’

President Mahama and his bunch of propagandists told us that by the end of 2016, the government will build two hundred day SHS in the country to absorb the many JHS students who could not get entry into SHS due to financial constraints. We are left with five months to the end of the year and the government has not been able to build even fifty of the two hundred day Senior High Schools he promised.

And when Nana Akufo Addo told Ghanaians that he will build one factory in each district in this country, these grandchildren of Goebbels are saying it is not possible. Because John Mahama promised to build 200 day Senior Schools and he was not able to keep his promise, nobody can do anything he or she promises to do.

These days the NDC apparatchiks do not want to hear anything about the one-time NHIS premium they promised Ghanaians. In fact anytime you want to refer them to that particular promise, they would quickly shift the goal post. As for me, I will forever continue to remind them of the promise because folks in the villages and small towns massively voted for the NDC based on that juicy promise.

I remember very well when Mr. Mahama was a running mate to the late Professor Mills, he visited the Brong Ahafo Region to campaign and the issue of the NHIS came up for discussion at ASTA FM, a local radio station located in Techiman. Mr. Mahama had gone to the station to address the people of the Brong Ahafo Region.

The man told the people that paying premium every year is very dangerous because as farmers, if for example, the rains refuse to fall and foodstuff get withered, the farmer will not get money to pay his premium so that he or she could benefit from the NHIS.

Mr. Mahama said since people pay VAT on luxurious goods the VAT will be increased so that the government will get money to implement the one-time premium.

Nearly eight years after this statement, we are yet to see the reality as promised by Mr. Mahama. People can decide to forget about all these promises but as for me, as sure as the sun will shine tomorrow at Bole, I will never stop until we go to the polls in November 7. I promise on my honour!!!