But for Mahama's Atuabo plant, dumsor would have been worse

In both business and politics, leadership is very critical. But what makes a real leader? And how can we recognize one? There are several characteristics of a great leader, but I would like to concentrate on the three major ones: moral courage, humility, and leaving behind a lasting legacy.

As Ghanaians, I believe most of us would be interested in knowing what kind of leader our former president is. I am, therefore, going to put President John Dramani Mahama on a scale for us to determine what class he belongs to. I will do the analysis dispassionately for all of us to draw a conclusion.

Moral courage: This matters most, but unfortunately, it is always in short supply; it is the ability to stick to one's vision or beliefs to pursue a course of action in the face of overwhelming criticism, great adversity, and not least, sometimes the faintheartedness of friends, allies, and supporters.

I have a faint memory of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah when he was overthrown in 1966 and saw a little bit of Dr. Busia as president. I can say with all certainty that the most demonised, most vilified, most pilloried, and perhaps the most ill-treated head of state in the history of Ghana is President John Dramani Mahama.

He is the only president who has frequently been embarrassed by some shameless, uncouth, amoral, rapacious, diabolical, mischievous, and wicked opposition elements whose only incontinent desire is to win power at all costs at the expense of the nation's progress; he is the only president whose presidency was needlessly challenged at the Supreme Court, and for eight good months, the economy of the country almost stood still.

The ripple effect of the petition case stagnated an economy that was near bedridden as a result of the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy, which saw the annual wage bill skyrocket from 2.7 billion Cedis to a whopping 9 billion Cedis! As if this were not enough, Ghana's budgetary support from its development partners was downsized because of its new status as a lower-middle-income state. Then came the killer punch: dumsor cum opposition massaged demonstrations. I bet you that these are enough to unsettle any leader worth his mettle, but President John Dramani Mahama unwaveringly soldiered on in style and did so much within his first term.

The humility level of President Mahama is matchless. For the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Ghana Armed Forces to be humble to the point of bowing to greet traditional rulers during events and accepting responsibility for the nation's challenges is a clear testimony to the point I am trying to make.

Above all, successful leaders must work to build something of which they could be proud of or remembered, something they could leave behind as a legacy, a legacy that could put smiles on the faces of people. This is where I doff my hat to H.E. John Dramani Mahama for the massive infrastructure legacy he left behind.

For instance, for the first time in the history of Ghana, President Mahama completed a gas plant at Atuabo to power our thermal plants and also supply 75% of the LPG needed in the country. But for this, the current power outages could have been horribly worse.