OPEN LETTER TO VICE PRESIDENT JOHN DRAMANI MAHAMA

Dear Sir,
I have never written to you before. And today, I have chosen to write to you
because I need to get some issues off my chest, and these issues are crucial
to the future of the NDC. I hear from the grapevine that you want to become
President one day, and you have been cultivating that ambition for a while
now. I hope it is not true because the NDC foot soldiers‹who are also partly
king makers‹have spoken to my Œchosen ears¹ and have said that they won¹t
support you in such an endeavour since you do not appreciate their
contribution to your becoming Vice President of Ghana. So my advice to you
is, perish the thought before it gains root.

So much naked opportunism has engulfed the ruling National Democratic
Congress (NDC) lately. A lot of what is happening today in the NDC begun
long before 2008 when the party was preparing itself to return to office.
Everyone is talking today of strife in the NDC but no one is tracing the
history of that strife. As a keen observer, participant and a student of NDC
power play, I have my own understanding of how we have found ourselves in
this quagmire and the negative role you as an individual have played in all
of this.
There are several dimensions to the situation but I am looking at it purely
from the point of view of the pure opportunism that has led to so much
subterfuge on the part of so-called senior people in the NDC‹you are not
excluded. I want to believe that the politics of exclusion that has become a
part of your government today is not a historical oddity. I am not amazed
when I hear people like you in the Œnew NDC¹ boasting vainly that the NDC
today can do better without the involvement of its founder. What amazes me
about you really is the fact that you describe everything the former
President says as Œcoup mentality¹. I am beginning to wonder if you really
understand what that means. People said the same thing in 2008 when it was
publicly and naively declared that the NDC founder¹s involvement in the
campaign will not only fail to add to the party¹s fortunes but will actually
take away from it. Later, no one had to be convinced that but for founder
Jerry John Rawlings¹ role in the campaign, the NPP would have schemed their
way to the Jubilee House (now Flagstaff House). After all, you will agree
with me that you couldn¹t pull any sizeable crowd during the campaign‹not
even in your own home town.
I want to believe that the subterfuge was initiated by you and aided by Ato
Ahwoi, Victor Smith and others. Why, didn¹t you announce to the entire world
that you were abandoning your parliamentary seat in order to pursue further
studies abroad? Why did you not announce again to the entire world when you
changed your mind? Is it not an open secret that just like in 2004, the NDC
founder also in 2008 did all he could under the Ghanaian sun to convince you
to partner Prof. Mills for the general election? How did you treat the
overtures from the founder? In my book, you treated it with indignation to
the extent that the founder¹s efforts to convince you was misconstrued as
bothering you so you even refused to see and talk to the him in your own
house at one time‹an incident that has become legendary. Or are you going to
deny that this ever happened?
It was first claimed by your apologists that you turned down the request
and support of the founder because you were earlier rejected by Prof. Mills
in 2004 despite the support of the founder. In that case, even though you
may have been interested in partnering the Prof., you were unprepared to be
rejected at the last minute for someone else‹again. That sounds like a
genuine concern but it is only a claim. There are those who want Ghanaians
to believe that Founder Jerry Rawlings did not support your bid in 2008 as
running mate but rather AG Betty Mould Iddrisu. These people‹in my books‹are
not real students of NDC power play. They draw their naive conclusions from
what they hear in the news or rather, they just want to cover up for your
insincerity.
Sir, you will confess, if even you have just the appearance of an honest
man (because I don¹t believe you are an honest man) that Betty Mould
Iddrisu¹s name came up only after the former president had given up
convincing you in his effort to suggest a perfect pair for the NDC in that
election‹you practically embarrassed him for it. Or did you want him to keep
begging you forever as though the entire destiny of the NDC was in your
hands?
Where did your dishonesty begin? Again, in my books, it begun when you
suddenly changed your mind and lost interest in your personal development
through further studies abroad‹something you were initially unprepared to
give up for politics. It was so sudden any keen observer had to be
curious‹even suspicious. I have personally tried to understand the true
motivation for your sudden turn around. I have been investigating and asking
questions ever since, and I have come to a firm conclusion that your primary
motivation to partner Prof. Mills in 2008 was purely opportunistic‹you
vainly hope to succeed as President on a silver platter. And I will make
that clear to you very soon.
But did we only have an issue with a running mate in 2008? There were also
issues with the health status of the Prof. in 2008. There were several
reports concerning his health status. In the end, some of it turned out to
be untrue‹not all of it. Prof. Mills himself publicly declared that he had
to seek treatment in China, and later in South Africa for a sinusitis‹an
inflammation of the membrane lining the sinus of the skull. This health
status of the Prof. became an open worry to the power brokers in the party.
This is not speculation‹and you know it‹as senior members such as Ato Ahwoi
has been heard in public announcing that he met with the founder and others
over suggestions of a Œplan B¹ to deal with the uncertainties associated
with the ill-health of the main candidate of the NDC for the 2008
election‹Prof. John Atta Mills.
Other insiders such as Herbert Mensah, a friend of the former president and
a known campaign financier of the NDC in the 2008 general election has also
been heard publicly revealing that the ill-health of the Prof. was a worry
to many including Ato Ahwoi who even described him as becoming Œdelusional
and hallucinating¹. Therefore, the worry of the power brokers in the NDC
even before 2008 over the main candidate¹s ill-health is not in doubt.
Tell me sir, was there really a long term Œplan B¹ or not? Prudently, there
must have been. For how could the NDC go into the General election in 2008
plagued with ill health of its flag bearer without a Œplan B¹? And this is
where your sudden change of mind to run for vice president comes to mind.
Strangely, when you decided to run, you refused to do what any honest and
sincere man would have done‹go back and inform the NDC founder‹the man who
recruited you into the party‹of your sudden decision to follow his initial
suggestion to partner Mills‹a suggestion you treated with contempt and
ridicule. Rather, you clandestinely went about canvassing and lobbying to be
considered by the Prof. as running mate. It has come to light, that one of
the key people who held the key to that decision is Ato Ahwoi. And who
brought this to light? Ato Ahwoi himself. He has openly asked Prof. Mills
not to appoint certain people into the new NDC government‹and he has not. A
so-called leading member of the NDC Alhaji Bature‹who also claims to be your
bosom friend‹is also on record to have announced openly that Ato Ahwoi is
responsible for the endurance Prof. Mills put up in the run up to the 2008
election despite his ill-health. He claimed that Prof. Mills wanted to quit
but was prevented solely by Ato Ahwoi. So obviously, Ato Ahwoi had a big say
in who became running mate‹only next to the Prof. himself‹or isn¹t it?
Sir, there was a whole lot of hoo-ha in this country when the founder and
his wife publicly declared their support for Betty Mould Iddrissu as running
mate to Prof. Mills in 2008. Some People quickly concluded that they were
doing it to oppose your bid for the same slot. But did you inform the
Rawlings¹ of your bid? I double doubt that! So did you and your apologists
expect founder Jerry Rawlings and his wife to support a bid they were
unaware of? And is that why you connived with Victor Smith, then Aide to
former President Rawlings and now Ghana¹s ambassador to the Czech Republic
to show Œobscene loyalty¹ to the founder? Or you think we do not know you¹re
an integral part of the reason for the sudden TXT message dismissal of
Victor Smith by President Rawlings?
Let those who are unaware be informed that Victor Smith had knowledge of
when and where you were scheduled to be out-doored as running mate to Prof.
Mills but it is public knowledge that founder Jerry Rawlings arrived at that
event very late and missed the entire show all because of the scheming of
you and your cohorts, Victor Smith and Ato Ahwoi to keep him out of the
event. The founder was misinformed with regards to the time by Victor Smith.
But why would Victor Smith be in cahoots with you and others to deceive
Founder Jerry Rawlings while working as his personal aide? Was there a
hidden agenda known only to Victor Smith and his collaborators which
includes you? Why did you not want the founder present at your out-dooring
as running mate? Could it be because the founder would have stood by his
principles and attempt to expose all the subterfuge that had culminated in
that event on that day? Did Victor Smith scheme with you to avoid this
exposure? And if he did, did he not deserve in hundred fold the Txt Message
dismissal he received soon afterwards? In my books, he deserved it doubly as
much as your dishonest and disingenuous self deserved exposure.
Yes sir, we would continue to ask questions‹and not just questions but draw
conclusions when we get there. And one of such conclusions is that your
sudden decision to run as VEEP contrary to earlier suggestions and
persuasions are for purely opportunistic reasons as stated earlier. You were
the real Œplan B¹ that Ato Ahwoi put in place for the uncertainty with the
ailing Prof. Mills. Why, Ato Ahwoi had full access to the supposedly
Œhorrible and unpromising health file¹ of the candidate Mills. And he showed
it to you who suddenly and vainly saw greater prospects of becoming a future
president on a silver platter. Or didn¹t he?
I am sure you¹re disappointed that the President is still alive and kicking
today. But knowing that founder Jerry Rawlings will expose your opportunism,
you schemed with the obscenely loyal Victor Smith to avoid it. It is obvious
and can be substantiated easily through the entire unraveling conspiracy‹and
you cannot even deny it. So you want to become President of Ghana on the
blind side of founder Jerry Rawlings‹and a scheming Victor Smith is on hand
to facilitate that agenda. Isn¹t it sir? Is it any wonder that Victor Smith
immediately joined your campaign team and was immediately put in-charge of
protocol at the presidency soon after the NDC won the election 2008 and
later made ambassador to Czech Republic? Would you expect any less for his
loyalty to that grand scheme orchestrated by you and your cohorts? Or you
think it is difficult to figure out why one of your most hyped visits abroad
in recent times is the one to the Czech Republic supposedly to solicit
engineering partnerships with the Czechs?
Of course, ambassador Smith still has a role to play in making that grand
scheme of you becoming a future President on a silver platter come to
fruition‹though from a safe distance. I want to see how this vain scheme of
yours will materialize on the blind side of the NDC founder and former
President of Ghana Jerry John Rawlings. Or have you apologized to the NDC
foot soldiers whom you claimed on an opposition NPP platform that they lack
a sense of sacrifice and have no right to demand reward for their effort in
making you vice president as though your becoming a running mate to Prof.
Mills in 2008 was an act of sacrifice at the expense of your further studies
abroad?
Time will tell but there is no becoming President on a silver platter on the
NDC ticket‹again. Not this time!
Courageously yours,
SaCut Amenga-Etego
(NDC youth with conviction of principle)