By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

He may be a smooth-talking politician, by Ghanaian standards, of course, but it is doubtful whether President John Dramani Mahama is a deep-thinking or a very reflective man. For instance, during a recent inaugural ceremony marking the launching of the final phase of the Bui Dam, in the Brong-Ahafo Region, Mr. Mahama was widely reported to have said that when the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party (NPP) embarked on its Election 2012 Presidential Petition, he thought it was all just a joke gone awry (See "Mahama: I Thought NPP was Joking Over 2012 Election Challenge" Radioxyzonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 12/19/13).

If, indeed, the very disturbing Supreme Court revelations of electoral irregularities and all, the President still thinks that the New Patriotic Party's petition was a mere joke, that may well explain why Mr. Mahama also thinks that it was God - or Divine Providence - "in His wisdom," who auspiciously assassinated his predecessor in order to gloriously pave the way for the accession of the first post-independence Ghanaian-born leader.

Of course, it can scarcely be gainsaid that the drawn-out judicial proceedings must have taken an enormous toll on Mr. Mahama. But this was also partly because of the President's desperate attempts to use his power and influence to both stall and preempt proceedings. What is also forensically incontrovertible, is the fact that God had absolutely nothing to do with the glaringly skewed outcome of Election 2012. Indeed, even as I have had several occasions to point out in previous columns, even the godfather of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), former President Jerry John Rawlings, does not believe that his political juggernaut clinched its electoral victory by fair and square means.

Then also, Mr. Johnson Asiedu-Nketia, the NDC's General-Secretary, has had his voice widely captured on magnetic tape by the electronic media, and been also widely reported by the print media, as well, to have truthfully observed that the margin of votes separating President Mahama from Nana Akufo-Addo was incontestably caused by the abject lack of vigilance on the part of New Patriotic Party polling agents and observers. Unless, of course, once again, Mr. Mahama would insolently have Ghanaians believe that Dr. Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, the shamelessly collusive Electoral Commissioner, deputized for Divine Providence during the massive travesty that was Election 2012.

It is also absolutely untrue that the Supreme Court of Ghana wholly and resoundingly "endorsed" the Mahama presidency with its, admittedly, rather bizarre ruling. Almost every one of the nine jurists on the Atuguba panel, which presided over the Election 2012 judicial petition proceedings, concluded that, in fact, neither Mr. Mahama nor Nana Akufo-Addo had garnered the moiety of votes required to secure the mandate of the electorate. If such clinically split decision should so mischievously be taken to be tantamount to an unreserved "endorsement" of the Mahama presidency, then the Bole-Bamboi native must have read a different version and/or interpretation of the Atuguba verdict.

Indeed, as I pointed out earlier, the Supreme Court verdict may well have gone against the petitioners primarily because Nana Akufo-Addo and his associates pressed the Court for the wrongful relief to be granted them. Rather than press for a complete rerun of the presidential portion of the general election, the petitioners rather scandalously, like spoiled brats, demanded that only the glaring instances of over-voting purported to have heavily favored the respondent deserved to be nullified, and then curiously have an electoral victory delivered on a diamond-gilt platter to Nana Akufo-Addo.

In other words, the NPP lost its Election 2012 Presidential Petition directly as a result of poor legal strategy, and not because Divine Providence had either decreed or anointed the establishment of a Mahama presidency. This is the kind of Ananse Story with which one regales an illiterate audience. And this is also why the national debate on free education ought to be taken seriously.

______________________________________________________________ *Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D. Department of English Nassau Community College of SUNY Garden City, New York Dec. 20, 2013 E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net ###