Mr President, Please Stop Playing Tribal Cards Amid Offering Flimsy Excuses

I find it absolutely awkward President Mahama’s fondness for resorting to playing tribal cards whenever his integrity and competence come under scrutiny. He seems to have found a safe haven in tribal cards that he can quickly shuffle to daze his critics. Right from 2012 electioneering campaign with its concomitant election promises that still remain largely unfulfilled, President Mahama has always been playing populist tribal cards so effectively to prop his position.

Knowing that he can easily whip up the sentiments of a group of people to sympathize with him, President Mahama will forever remain the obstinate “Yen ntie obiara”, most incompetent person in whose hands the fate of Ghanaians has been entrusted.

Some Ghanaians are easily manipulated to believe that whenever President Mahama’s style of governance is questioned, it is because he is from the minority tribe that people don’t want to see them govern Ghana. This is absolute crap! Whether he is from the minority or the majority tribe, he is still a Ghanaian and therefore, can rule Ghana.

The issue is not about where he comes from as a tribesman. It is all about his competence or incompetence to managing the affairs of Ghana. That is the worry of most Ghanaians. So far, his track record as President of Ghana is ridiculously stinky. He has only been accentuating tribalism, nepotism, selective justice and divide and rule tactics. No sane and serious President will do what President Mahama is doing. He thinks surrounding himself with only a particular group of people, making a few people more powerful and overly rich, creating loudmouths and empowering them to intimidate the masses, is all that it takes to govern a nation. If that is his vision, then I am afraid, he has got it all wrong.

His quick resort to playing tribal cards will not deter those who feel aggrieved by his segregating myopic policies, from pursuing their intentions to get him to behave responsibly as a father for all, but not the father for only a few people or a particular tribe. The more he plays his nonsensical tribal cards, the more he digs his own grave wider and deeper.

It is even not everybody from his tribe that is benefitting from his total incompetence and institutional corruption. Majority of his tribesmen are suffering equally as his non tribesmen. The suffering people will be stupid to support his cry for sympathy knowing he does not care about them but his family and cronies. The louder the poor masses cry, the stronger his resolve to mess the economy of Ghana is.

Is it obligatory for Ghanaians to allow him a second term in office because all the Johns who have ascended the presidency before him had had their second terms? Therefore, he being of the John family, must be accorded a second term. My question to him and his infatuated supporters is did the late President John Evans Atta Mills have a second term? No, he was not even lucky to complete his first term in office before dying under until now mysterious circumstances.

Who will be stupid to proceed on a path that has an abyss that no-one can circumvent? Anyone who does proceed on that path for a reason or the other will fall into the deep pit. Knowing how President Mahama has senselessly been mismanaging the affairs of Ghana through corruption, daylight robbery (fraudulent judgment debt payments), tribalism etc., only fools will vote him for a second term in office come 2016.

Whether he will be voted for a second term in office or not, I want Ghanaians to ponder over the following story. Presuming you are in Europe or in America and have resolutely decided to put up a storey building in say, Accra or Kumasi (Ghana). You have been away from Ghana for years. You have decided to visit Ghana but not until you have either completed or is half way through putting up your intended storey building. For the last year preceding your going home, you have been making regular remittances to your brother towards your dream project.

When you go home, you find that your brother has completed the ground floor of your dreamed two-storey building. However, he has built the house in a marshy area or ground. You have come to suspect the foundation to be weak with the likely possibility of the house collapsing in the near future due to the ground on which it stands. Even though it is very much your aim to build a two-storey building because every male from your family that travels abroad builds a storey building, what will be your immediate reaction?

My question to you is, will you continue to build the upper level of the house to attain your dream of being a two-storey house owner or you will not? If you will not, tell me why. If you will, tell me why.

Whatever answer you give, bear President John Dramani Mahama in mind. This is an analogy to test how wise and realistic those blindly being supportive of President Mahama are. I shall tell you how my reaction will be in my next publication about why President Mahama should not be given a second chance should he remain incompetent as he is into 2016 which surely, he will.

Once bitten, twice shy. It is an established fact that it is difficult to teach old dog new tricks. An intelligent honest person understands the purpose of this write-up. Ghanaians should not continue to suffer needlessly under the hands of this “koto besom” President.

Rockson Adofo