Opinions of Monday, 4 February 2019

Columnist: Fadi Dabbousi

Manasseh Azure I beg to differ; Nana Akufo-Addo reigns supreme

Fadi Dabbousi Fadi Dabbousi

Going into the 2016 elections, Ghana was naked, literally and practically. Our economy was financially naked due to supposed honourable persons who dipped their hands leisurely into the coffers and drank of your blood and mine.

The institutions were stripped, some like professional striptease artistes and others like unprofessional sex-hungry gluttons who did not differentiate between the sexes to do their criminal acts of rape!

SSNIT was allegedly duped by an NDC presidential aspirant, Joshua Alabi, who, it was said, bought a software for well over eighty million US Dollars with a rippling effect that transcended into hundreds of millions more in extra losses to the State.

NHIA was, also allegedly, chewed right down to the bone by yet another NDC presidential aspirant, Sylvester Mensah! Masloc was raped viciously too, ironically, by an NDC lady! Zoomlion, allegedly, had a field’s day hopping from one contract to another executing some poorly and discarding some, but getting paid anyway.

Customs officials, in connivance with smugglers and other morally decadent souls, duped the State by allowing under-invoicing, duty evasion and so on! Today the paperless system has culled that phenomenon, and is bringing in loads of money to augment the coffers.

Why won’t you speak to that, Manasseh? The district assemblies, Municipalities, and other institutions just could not get enough of the pillaging that many officers went from rags to riches in the shortest possible time.

Before the ascent of His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to the Presidency, there was not a single social intervention by the NDC worth writing home about.

Even when they tried to copy the Fee SHS after rigging 2012 elections, it was rather a shambolic attempt, so much so that it caused massive financial losses to the State on several fronts which inured to the benefit of their “kotoku” (pockets).

It is for this reason that the Nana Akufo-Addo government is taking its time painstakingly to gather the requisite evidence to ensure that any case sent to court will end in a conviction and incarceration of the offenders.

Unfortunately, some of the investigators are said to be working for the alleged offenders.

However, something better is being done about this situation to get the cases well knitted and stitched to ensure justice!

If you would count the blessings of this country since the advent of the NPP to Power, you should understand why Nana Akufo-Addo reigns supreme! The beauty of this world is that every individual sees issues in different perspectives, and I respect the diversity of opinions, but to say that the President has dropped from 100% to 40% is such a terrible miscalculation! I wonder if your eyes are clear enough to see the figures that you multiplied, divided, subtracted, and added, to arrive at this derivative!

Say you are ignorant, Manasseh, but we can have this discussion! First of all, the arrears of teachers have all been paid! How’s that for a starter?

The 1D1F is a reality I am sure you can see the blessings of clearly written on the walls of every factual and thoughtful human being! The 1V1D is no less an important social intervention, or what do you think?

Due to that, crops are in abundance, and prices of food products have dropped considerably! Yes o, my friend, even the planting for food and jobs has yielded unprecedented results.

Many jobless youngsters have returned to the hinterland to participate in making Ghana Great Again! You know, and same is an established fact, that under the NDC agriculture became a non-culture! We had to resort to the importation of our basic staples! Have you soon forgotten, or you an embodiment of John Mahama’s insult that Ghanaians have short memories? Today Ghana is exporting food in uncountable truckloads. Is that not a boom of resounding effects in the pockets of many Ghanaians?

Are you privy to the renegotiated oil and gas contracts that have resulted in an increased income to the State? Maybe not! How about the Road Fund, which was handed over to the UBA Bank by the NDC against a loan at a preposterously higher rate than “abnormally possible”? Are you not aware that the roads sector was rejuvenated by the restructuring of this loan, which eventually freed the Road Fund to allow for progress in the Roads sector?

Then again, you may claim that you are “a citizen not a spectator”, but your analogy is quite problematic. If I want to begin listing the endless social interventions of President Akufo-Addo, you will have a high fever in the middle of a summer noon, but that is not my aim! I want to tell you that when you make little or nothing of such Akufo-Addo policies, it regurgitates the goodwill you seem to have for the nation especially that you are seen as a fighter for the rights of Ghanaians!

There are, of course, those self-seeking elements within our NPP circles who are a pain in our bottoms, and we are closing in on them. The President knows them by name, too; oh yeah, and he will shake their foundations to the very core, soon.

So as you are taking cognisance of the inalienable and matter of course negative aspects as present in every political organisation and government, please open your eyes to the beauty of the world that inadvertently became so by way of the positive social interventions of the President, His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.

If I want to work with rounding scores to the nearest integer, I will rate Nana Akufo-Addo’s performance at 70%, and that is just because he has been in office for two difficult years clearing the mess of an incompetent NDC that chewed the meat and the bones leaving the nation with nothing – ZIP ZERO!

I expect the score will only get better over the next two years, and I want to believe that by the end of his first term in office, President Akufo-Addo would have ranked about 85% on my scoresheet!

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