Dr. Bawumia’s double standard: A new low in Ghana’s politics

Honesty is one of the most essential ingredients in leadership. Being honest helps in building trust with one’s self and others, it is therefore imperative for those who seek political power to be truthful about their thoughts, feelings, and actions. It helps the leader to create a foundation that others can rely on.

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has carved a niche for himself as a politician whose path does not cross honesty. He has always sought to use lies, deceptions, and dishonesty to win the hearts and minds of the masses.

Dr. Bawumia has been an integral part of this administration from its inception. All the policies and ideas of this administration were conceived and implemented with his input. He needs to credit Ghanaians with some intelligence. He needs to take responsibility for whatever happens under this administration, instead of his cherry-picking attitude.

Dr. Bawumia has on several platforms claimed credit for all the few “positives” of this administration. He was introduced and sold to Ghanaians as an economic wizard who had the solutions to all the country’s economic challenges.

After miserably failing in the economic sector, he cowardly jettisoned the economic sector where he is the head of the Economic Management Team and hopped on to claim the so-called digitalization drive as if the Ministry of Communication and the National Communication Authority (NCA) were non-existent.

The Accra Digital Centre (ADC) was established by former president John Mahama to position Ghana as a regional ICT Hub to enable Ghana to leap into the digital age, but Dr. Bawumia has been claiming credit for digitalisation as if he established the ADC.

After being instrumental in the drafting of the E-Levy, he had the temerity to look Ghanaians in the eyes and declare that he would abandon it in the most unlikely event that he becomes the president (perish the thought). Dr. Bawumia should be told that you cannot approbate and reprobate.

Recently, he accused the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) of setting unrealistic targets that compel them to harass businesses, knowing very well that, it is his government that set those unrealistic targets for the GRA and compelled them to needlessly harass these businesses to meet the targets.

Dr. Bawumia also went to Kwahu during the Easter celebration and announced that confiscated excavators would no longer be subjected to burning under his administration. Where was Dr. Bawumia when some of the Civil Service Organisations (CSOs) were condemning the illegal burning of excavators without going through any court processes?

Promising businesses of tax clemency if he wins the election is the height of desperation any politician can exhibit, what if some businesses decide to evade taxes from now up to the election date with the hope that the vice president has promised to forgive their tax arrears? It's high time Dr. Bawumia took Ghanaians seriously.

He has conveniently and cowardly avoided the debates surrounding the economy such as the exchange rate, interest rate, inflation, cost of doing business, and cost of living. What sort of an economist doesn’t want to talk about economic variables?

Dr. Bawumia is like an auto mechanical engineering professor who understands all the theories about auto mechanics, but when his or her car develops a fault, he/she has no clue on how to diagnose the problem, needless to say, fix it, but send it to the “uneducated” auto mechanic at Suame magazine to fix it. Such is the persona of Dr. Bawumia, he may know all the economic theories but is clueless when it comes to linking theory to practice. The current economic mess is an attestation.

Dr. Bawumia’s penchant for disassociating himself from the ills of this government but claiming credit for the few marginal successes is a glaring indication of his double standard, dishonesty, credibility bankruptcy, and desperation.

His recent actions qualify to be the perfect description of desperation. His decision to hop from one church to another while addressing the congregants as “my fellow believers” when it is glaring that, as a Muslim he does not believe in Christian doctrines, is a mark of a deceptive and desperate personality with questionable credibility.

The greatest mistake any Ghanaian can make is to trust Dr. Bawumia, he is the worse version of President Akufo-Addo packaged to deceive us. We cannot afford to have a leader like Dr. Bawumia who resorts to deception, manipulation, and dishonesty for his desperate political ambition.

From childhood, we learned why honesty matters. Yet in politics, deception has become far too commonplace, especially under this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia administration. This culture of normalization of lies by Dr. Bawumia and his government erodes social cohesion. To safeguard democracy, political leaders seeking to rule us must demand facts, reject falsehoods, and restore trust through a shared commitment to the truth.

A vote for Dr. Bawumia will be a reward for dishonesty, lies irresponsibility, and double standards. Let’s set a better standard by rejecting Dr. Bawumia and the NPP.