Dumsor Political Rallies

In the 2012 election in America, the Republican Party candidate, Mitt Romney, touted his business experience and said it gives him a unique ability to fix the American economy. President Obama on the other hand was said to have said that he would not let Mitt Romney come and enjoy the benefits of the hard work that he had done to fix the American economy. Translation: Obama had done the work necessary to fix the economy and the benefits would come in time. If Mitt Romney won, he would get the credit for fixing the economy while indeed it was Obama who fixed it. The American people didn’t give Mitt Romney a chance to do his magic, and what do you know; the economy got better. I guess it is easy now to say that President Obama was right. He had done the hard work.

In life as in politics, our impatience often get ahead of well thought through solutions to problems and often politicians exploit it as Mr. Akufo-Addo seems to be doing. To me Mr. Akufo-Addo has demonstrated that his ambition to be President trumps everything else. We Ghanaians have to be level headed and not let anyone exploit us.

Dumsor has transcended many Presidents. If I am not mistaking, there was dumsor when Rawlings was President even if it wasn’t called dumsor. President Kuffour saw his share of it as did President Atta-Mills. Yes President Mahama has had more than long enough time to fix the problem and he hasn’t. If a problem does not lend itself to a quick fix, making Akufo-Addo President will not suddenly solve the problem for us especially that Mr. Akufo-Addo, if he knows how, has not told us how he will solve the problem.

Mr. Akufo-Addo has ran for President twice already. In this his third run, I should be able to recite everything he is going to do to solve Ghana’s problems word for word but I can’t. I don’t believe it is because of a short coming on my part. I believe it is because Mr. Akufo-Addo has not said anything specific that he will do to solve our problems.

He has spoken eloquently about things that we must do; like, “we must create jobs”. I have no idea how he proposes to do that. I suppose he wants to become President and then figure out how to do it. If he can’t think of any way to do it, at least he became President: his goals met; Ghana still in the cold. I guess as the election campaign proceeds, Mr. Akufo-Addo will proclaim that President Mahama “stole” his free SHS idea. I personally was not a fan of that idea when Akufo-Addo proposed it; I was not a fan when President Mahama “stole” it; and I am not a fan today because no one has told me why Ministers’ children should have free SHS when we continue to have children going to school under trees even in Accra. No one has told me why the children of bank executives should have free SHS. No one has told me why judges’ children should have free SHS. Yet that’s about the most we have got from Mr. Akufo-Addo in all the years he has been running for President.

On dumsor, if Mr. Akufo-Addo knows how to solve the problem and he is holding it close to his chest then how patriotic can he be, and how much does he care about the plight of Ghanaians? If he has a solution and President Mahama “steals” his solution and it works, I will be among the loudest calling for his election because there could be more where that came from. If on the other hand Mr. Akufo-Addo does not have answers and he is exploiting Ghanaians for his ambition then how much of a statesman can he be? He is exploiting people who don’t know any better. Even people who purport to know better don’t seem to or are willfully exploiting Ghanaians when they know better. NPP, USA calls for this; NPP, Germany calls for that; why don’t they try their hands at making suggestions that may help solve our problems? Of course, that requires ability: ability that has seemed to elude the best of us: those who have stuck their chests out.