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Opinions of Monday, 9 March 2020

Columnist: Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

Mahama is too corrupt, incompetent, divisive and poisonous for the country

On an electioneering campaign stumps in the Akufo-Addo-created Western-North Region, recently, Candidate John Dramani Mahama, the former President who vehemently pooh-poohed the Akufo-Addo-implemented fee-free Senior High School Policy Initiative as a veritable pipe-dream that was not realizable even in a million years, was widely reported to have declared that in the highly unlikely event of him and his main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Party being returned to power, the former Rawlings’ Communication Minister intended to build one technical institute in each and every district in the country (See “I Will Fix Broken Education System – Mahama” Ghana News Agency (GNA) / Ghanaweb.com 2/22/20).

The fact of the matter is that the man who criminally supervised the effective bankrupting of Ghana’s banking system in just four-and-half years of grossly incompetent misrule can only be expected to further ruin the country’s economy. So, the question really becomes: Where is Little Dramani going to get the money to build nearly 300 technical institutes in the country?

In the wake of his criminal bankrupting of the country’s banking system, it has taken President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo more than $1 Billion (USD) to repair this seismic damage, including paying back the moneys of virtually each and every depositor at these effectively defunct institutions. Largely, Mr. Mahama permitted his cronies and associates in the banking industry to literally take their unsuspecting customers to the cleaners.

Presently, Dr. Johnson Asiamah, the former Deputy-Governor of the nation’s Central Treasury, the Bank of Ghana, is on trial for stealing millions of cedis and other foreign currencies in Ghanaian taxpayer moneys. That goes to show the Dear Reader the sort of stygian economic mess bequeathed Mr. Mahama’s successor, to wit, President Akufo-Addo, and the Ghanaian taxpayer. The man has absolutely no conscience, let alone any love for either his fellow Ghanaians or the nation at large.

We must also bear in mind that during his 2012 electioneering campaign, then-Interim-President Mahama promised voters that he was going to retrieve every pesewa stolen from the country’s Treasury by Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome, the foremost financial underwriter of the National Democratic Congress. Well, here again, the sad and most annoying news is that absolutely not even one pesewa was collected from the NDC-backed Mega-Thief.

Instead, Mrs. Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, the Mahama-appointed Attorney-General and Minister of Justice – some justice, indeed – would spend millions of cedis and dollars of the Ghanaian taxpayer’s money literally running farcical rings around Mr. Woyome and end up actually protecting the latter from being brought to justice.

That is just how credible the word of Little Dramani is. You see, a man who believes that the provision of a fee-free Senior High School Education Policy Initiative is a veritable pipedream that cannot be realizable even in one-million years, can simply not be expected to follow through with his promise of building some 300 technical institutes in the country in just four years.

His electioneering campaign promises are simply not worth the breath in which they are spoken. His track-record on the building of Senior High Schools in four-and-years alone exposes the Bole, Savannah Region, native for the pathological liar and unconscionable scam-artist that he is.

In the leadup to the 2012 Presidential Election, for example, the then-Interim President John Dramani Mahama looked Ghanaians straight in the eye and promised to build some 200 Senior High School physical-plant facilities, the so-called E-Blocks. Well, here again, the bad news is that at last count, the Mahama-led regime of the National Democratic Congress had only been able to build barely 40 E-Block high schools, the vast majority of which were not even equipped with the requisite learning materials and tools to enable our knowledge-hungry youths to attend. Now, 40 buildings out of the promised 200 amounts to a diddly 20-percent of the fulfillment of the promise of Little Dramani.

What this means is that every promise of Little Dramani is at least 80-percent short of the truth and the reality. In short, Little Dramani is a starkly naked king who has absolutely no clue about the fact that he is absolutely naked, hung and all.

At any rate, the Ford Expedition Payola Specialist is hellbent on bringing the country down to the totally bankrupt level of his vacuous political imagination and unenviable national development track-record. He cannot win the next election, not by any stretch of the imagination, because Mr. Mahama was never endowed with the adult talent for competent governance and dynamic and genius leadership by the very “inscrutably savvy Divine Providence” who purportedly forced then-President John Evans Atta-Mills to kick the bucket, so the first Ghanaian leader born after independence could comfortably occupy the chicken coop that is Jubilee House.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net