To continue with his presidential special initiative on judgment debt payments? Whereas President Kwame Nkrumah was noted for his special initiative to industrialize the country, President John Agyekum Kufour remembered for his special initiative to develop the country by growing the private and agricultural sectors, President Kutu Acheampong revered for his special initiative to achieve food sufficiency via his operation feed yourself programme, President Mills’ special initiative is to cripple the economy via the settlement of debts.

Some people in the country, though in the minority, are calling for the renewal of the mandate of President Mills at the next elections. I must admit I find this call a bit weird because it is misplaced and still at birth. President Mills is a failed leader and has demonstrated in several ways that his election as the president of this great nation of ours was a mistake. His pronouncements in recent times are enough justification to reject him at the next polls. The man has demonstrated in no uncertain terms that he does not have the wherewithal to offer visionary and pragmatic leadership to lead us into social, economic, and political freedoms.

Ever since he assumed the presidency, tensions, fears, agitations, intimidations, industrial actions, lawlessness, unnecessary arrests, etc. have been the new order in the country. There has been a paradigm shift in the governance of this country: the pillars of democracy which were firmly established under the prior administration are being eroded as a result of the president and his administration’s unwillingness to accept dissenting views and their determination to stick to power in spite of their exhibition of malfunctioning governance. The Mills-Mahama administration is a Mickey-mouse one. Either the president is weak and ineffective or other persons in his administration who are incompetent are calling the shots about the direction and management of the country.

What records is the president leaning on in his bid to seek re-election? This question has not been convincingly addressed by the minority who is advocating his re-election. Because the president does not have credible and enduring legacies, but those that have put the nation on the wheel of retrogression and near-destruction, those who are laboriously fighting for his unlikely second term bid, are talking about sticking to precedent. By precedent, they mean because Presidents Rawlings and Kufour had two terms each, President Mills must also automatically be accorded same. What these persons conveniently forget is that per our constitution, the electoral commission is obligated to organize elections every four years. But when you ask them if they would retain President Mills were he the CEO of their private company, they say no. Their response in the negative is a tacit admittance of the failed and uninspiring leadership of President Mills. If he were the CEO of my company, he would have been fired long time ago. Elected presidents are supposed to transform their nations and not to deform them; but President Mills is deforming the nation on all its facets—economic, political, and social.

Friends, the presidency or seeking re-election as a president is not an appeasement, it is meritorious; it must be earned. President Mills must only be given another mandate based on his records and not on any other tangential issues such as peace-loving, honesty, or religiosity. The fact is that President Mills is bereft of all those virtues people have been bestowing on him. He has not demonstrated that he is peace-loving; on the contrary, the evidence shows that he embodies the reverse. Why has he failed to include Ekow Spio Garbrah in his administration? If he is peace-loving, how come there is confusion and anarchy in his own party? Was he not the one who said at their rally at Mantse Agbona that all those who feel disappointed under his administration will continue to feel disappointed? Does this comment reflect the characteristic of a peace-loving person?

I mean why should we give President Mills another mandate? To do what? Continue the deepening of institutionalized and ingrained corruption in his administration? Should we offer him another mandate for him to further lead the country into the abyss? Should we offer him another undeserved opportunity to divide and rule this country? Do we want to live in continuous fear as a result of selectivity in the dispensing of justice? Why did the police arrest O. B. Amoah—an opposition member of parliament, but didn’t arrest Betty Mould Iddrisu- a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice—who presided over the worst corruption in our history? Why has the deputy Attorney General—Barton Odro, who defended the payment of the judgment debt to Alfred Agbesi Woyome not arrested or invited for questioning by the police for his role in the Woyomegate scandal, but former ministers in the prior administration have been questioned. Yet, President Mills is father for all; is it not strange that this is going on in a democratic dispensation?

Folks, can’t we see that President Mills and his administration are slowly, but surely leading the country into destruction. Can’t we figure that the president has lost it; yes he has! We don’t need a president under whose reign law and order is broken, and wouldn’t act when members of his party fall foul of the law. When Baba Jamal declared jihad during a by-election at Akwatia, where was President Mills? When his party’s constituency secretary at Abuakwa South (Kwadwo Dua Shakespeare Ofori-Atta) threatened to burn a whole government building, and visit mayhem on the government appointee, did he act? The answer is a bloody no. It was rather the chief of the area—Osagyefo Amoatia Ofori Panin who caused his arrest through the police. Second, when the chief of Techiman arrogated to himself the power of arrest by kidnapping the chief of Tuobodom, what did the commander in chief of the armed forces do? Nothing! It took the Asantehene to threaten the Techiman chief before the president acted? Is this the person you want to direct the affairs of our country?

Just two weeks ago, when Nii Lantey Vanderpuye (the director of operations at the presidency and aide of the president) and his hoodlums were visting mayhem on innocent citizens who wanted to get their names on the biometric register in order for them to decide the direction of the country during the December elections, what did President Mills do? Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing. What he said rather was that he is not a law enforcement officer; but I thought he is the commander in chief of the armed forces per our 1992 constitution. Is this a president who should be given another mandate? The answer is an emphatic no.

Folks, what are we waiting for as our country is being misruled and mismanaged by an administration led by an Associative Professor of law who is taking the country into destruction? As President Rawlings said, if you find yourself in an unintended hole, you don’t need to dig further. We are in a gargantuan dark hole, and must get out so that we can save ourselves and rescue the country for posterity. A change of President Mills at the December 7 elections, will achieve this noble objective. Why should you vote for President Mills? I mean to do what?

Source: Kingsley Nyarko, Psychologist, Accra (kingsleynyarko73@yahoo.com)