Opinions of Thursday, 1 December 2022

Columnist: Iddrisu Abdul Hakeem

Ghana's double celebrations: Happy birthday to President John Mahama

Former President, John Dramani Mahama Former President, John Dramani Mahama

Fellow Ghanaians, undoubtedly the victory of the Black Stars over the Korean Republic on November 28, 2022, has brought us some modicum of relief as the joy and wild jubilations momentarily robbed us of the pain of the litany of woes of our dear nation.

Well, the celebration could have been preceded by the birthday of the man of the moment we are all waiting for: former President John Dramani Mahama, the nation's Messiah of leadership, the saviour, our hope.

Say what you like, President Mahama is a “Divine seed” no amount of drought can prevent from sprouting and flourishing. Like him or not, it's in his favor. And we are all living witnesses to the likely catastrophe that can strike out of a display of hate towards this wonderful soul. It is not magic. That is the manifestation and sign of every man of honesty, truth, justice, peace, and clemency.

President Mahama, hate him at your own peril. And Ghanaians are my witness. A local proverb says that “a child that vows the mother won't sleep, would not only deprive his own self a sound sleep as well but fatigued and worn-out. That's the situation of Ghanaians today. Everyone is yawning out of frustration and desperation.

Unless you have been living under a rock or in a hole in recent times, if you have bought either a bag of rice or corn in recent times to feed your family, you will appreciate the above descriptions given to the innocent man Akufo Addo painted black for Ghanaians.

Indeed, the departure of President Mahama from the FlagStaff House was nothing but a sunset at noon! But it was also a kind of political hibernation mode he embarked upon in order to illustrate a point that, the speed of a farm tractor is determined among its peers, not among Bugattis. And that, Akufu Addo doesn’t get what it takes to compete with him in the management of people and their resources.

It is not about the number of forged certificates you have or faking of professions; that is a recipe for disaster.

You see, sometimes, God afflicts us with evil and allows it to exist not because the devil has equal powers as God, but to cause us to appreciate His blessings and bounties. To cause us to know the difference between good and evil, righteousness and wrongness.

Fellow Ghanaians, with almost six years of Akufo Addo's leadership, I guess many would have wished to reverse the course of time and speed us back to 2016 to stop Akufo Addo from contesting the 2016 general election.

In fact, like Albert Einstein lamented when he realized the atrocity of nuclear weapons, he wished he had been a watchmaker than a scientist who enabled the invention of the atomic bomb.

Today, many of us wish Akufo Addo had been a cocoa farmer!

With our debt to GDP ratio going beyond a hundred percent, our currency the worst performing currency in the whole world, inflation larger than ever, shortage of honesty, integrity, and justice in the Akufo Addo administration, unemployment as a ticking time bomb, a looming security disaster hovering over us, there's no perfect description of Akufo-Addo than the CNN's recent description of him as the worst president ever in the history of our country.

It is however embarrassing that, though brimming with intellectuals, nobody has realized the true colors of our President.

The Sri Lankans probably did what Napoleon Bonaparte could not do. While Ghana remains a country of the rule of law, tribalism alone would never allow us to go that tangent. Yet the intellectuals are silent.

I heard the president calling for peace and security. Well, judging from the Sri Lankan crisis, the biggest threat to our security and peace is Akufo Addo’s continuous stay as our president.

With unprecedented corruption coupled with fraudulent government policies of one-district-one-factory, Free education, and plenty of ministers, among others, the delay of the president to resign from the presidency is the worst nightmare Ghanaians can think of! Our problem is never Covid or Ukraine.

Anybody who still buys into the unfortunate narrative by the government of Covid-19 and Ukraine war as the cause of the present mess is either a participant in the gangsterism, criminality, and thievery that characterize the Akufo Addo government, or such a fellow needs visitation and examination of a psychiatric doctor.

Our elders say it is mandatory to powder the occiput of a pathological liar with soil after winning a wrestle against him so that when he gets up to deny it, his powdered occiput will expose him.

The current economic mess translated into hardship in unbearable levels Ghanaians are going through is an eloquent testimony to the fact that God Himself didn't want Akufo Addo to become president of Ghana not out of hatred for His humble servant. In Dagbani, we say it's because of the evil intentions of the donkey God never gave it horns.

Ghanaians who out of ingratitude invented artificial horns for the "donkey" created the current economic calamity. Those who elected or connived to steal elections 2016 and 2020 respectively for Akufo Addo, must take the lion's share of blame for the current mess.

And it looks as if we have not learned enough bitter lessons. The fact that nobody is legally calling for the "head" of the president despite his leadership diarrhea, is worrying. It is partly what has emboldened him to keep his kind at the ministry of finance in the person of Ken Ofori Atta who has declared and advertised his own incompetence to the whole wide world.

Is it not intriguing to note that while Ken Offori Atta was proclaiming that Ghana was a proud nation and doesn't have to go for IMF Program, didn't know that Ghana was under IMF Program? Interesting.

The economic glory he was basking in with lengthy budget statements well delivered like an anchor, was largely the intervention of the IMF Program.

The IMF Program His Excellency President Mahama's administration negotiated in 2015 which was necessitated by the Ebola outbreak coupled with oil, gold, cocoa, and other commodities' prices dwindling, was still in progress when Ken Ofori Atta became Finance minister of Ghana in 2017.

It ended in 2019 and within two years, he ran the economy aground and had to shamelessly go back to the IMF despite his arrogant but incompetent comments about the IMF Program.

I guess the IMF does not stand for any values otherwise they would not have agreed to bail Ghana out, or at least decide to deal with a different minister and not the embattled one.

I didn't mention DumSor as part of the challenges that necessitated the IMF bailout on purpose: it was an "inside job" to sabotage the Mahama administration so that somebody with his ridiculous agenda of becoming president could become.

In his own words, Akufo Addo as a presidential candidate of the NPP aid they would make the Mahama government ungovernable as part of their evil Machiavellian tactics to win power. It, therefore, came as no surprise that the day Akufo Addo was declared winner of the 2016 election, DumSor stopped.

Today, unless idiots and tribal lords, the signs are there for all to see, that Akufo Addo's presidency has been a punishment to ungrateful Ghanaians who rejected mercy and peace and foisted this political calamity upon us.

Our elders say if the wolf is who deserves justice, it must be given to it to go back to the wild no matter how undomesticated the human judge may see it.

Irrespective of his tribal affiliation and religion or geographical location, President Mahama deserves a national apology from Ghanaians. And for me, that should be manifested in the upcoming 2024 presidential polls.

The Supreme Court's magic justice and verdict in the 2020 election must not repeat itself. Law-abiding Ghanaians must continue to pray to the Almighty so that we don't get to experience the like of the electoral heist Ghana witnessed in the last election.

As we celebrate the nation's victory over Korea at the world cup yesterday, let's celebrate the upcoming Saviour of Ghanaian politics, President John Dramani Mahama as he clocks 64 years today.

Obviously, nature itself seems to have recognized our current agony and pain, and God has brought the two celebrations together as a sign of hope for the nation.

It was Napoleon Bonaparte who said that a leader is a dealer in hope.

As he turns 64 today, we pray that God has mercy upon him, gives him victory over his enemies, and grants him good health, happiness, long life, and everlasting HOPE.

Aameen!

Fellow Ghanaians, please join me to raise a toast to the good health, long life, joy, and happiness of one of Africa's most influential, wonderful, and iconic leaders of our time, President John Dramani Mahama.