President Akufo-Addo and the NPP party failed Ghanaians big time!

The inactions or half-hearted actions, insensitivity, and unpopularity of Nana Akufo-Addo’s regime are legendary. Ghanaians are now gradually finding some space to vent their frustrations and it should continue unabated.

It is becoming apparent that the only way Nana Akufo-Addo will listen to the plight of Ghanaians owing to the fallout of his regime even among the NPP folk is to ‘make noise’.

Making noise here, I mean demanding more accountability and transparency from this insensitive regime after they enjoyed unprecedented public support for the past 7 years.

Let us not make noise only after the Rubicon is crossed like the ousted Ali Bongo of Gabon. The right time to make ‘effective noise’ is indeed now! Ghanaians need to join the #OccupyBOGProtest which happened on Tuesday, October 3, 2023, after the #OccupyJulorbiHouse demonstration in your numbers to drum home the message of economic mismanagement, poor governance, and worsening living conditions faced by all Ghanaians and the need to change the current narrative.

President Akufo-Addo was considered a consummate democrat, a no-nonsense person, and a touted human rights lawyer. However, he has turned out to be the worst president the Fourth Republic has produced so far! This is a huge disappointment!

It is important to go into specifics of my submission here to buttress the inactions, insensitivity, and unpopularity of this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led government.

The deliberate inactions or half-hearted attempts of this Akufo-Addo-led government to fight corruption have led to the festering of more corruption in the country. This government has registered more corruption scandals including Agyapa, PDS, and BOST- BOST-contaminated oil scandals, to mention a few than any other government in our Fourth Republican dispensation. When it comes to corruption-related matters, President Akufo-Addo is unfortunately tagged as a ‘Clearing Agent’ for his impatience in defense of his embattled Appointees and some NPP officials.

The Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led government only took pride in the establishment of the Office of the Special Prosecutor (OSP) but dragged its feet on resourcing the OSP to function properly. The stiff resistance from the NPP folk concerning the investigation of the Cash hoarding saga involving Madam Cecilia Dapaah and her house helps by the OSP reflects the half-hearted intention to fight corruption on the part of this government.

This current governing NPP regime heavily chastised the erstwhile Mahama-led government for burdening Ghanaians with borrowing, and numerous nuisance taxes imposed on Ghanaians. Ironically, this Akufo-Addo-led government has rather engaged in unbridled borrowing leading to its unprincipled U-turn to the IMF for a bailout and its associated conditionalities.

The insensitivity of this government is manifestly exhibited through the passage of the infamous e-levy and new nuisance taxes as well as the haphazard implementation of the Domestic Debt Exchange Program (DDEP), which subjected fragile pensioners and other domestic bondholders to severe economic hardships leading to a series of protests at the Finance Ministry. This was done to satisfy the prior conditions of the $3 billion loan approved by the IMF to the neglect of the well-being of Ghanaians.

President Akufo-Addo made Ghanaians believe that he needed a large government in his first term because he was in a hurry to implement his development agenda despite strong views to downsize looking at our peculiar economic situation. Furthermore, Nana Akufo-Addo has been averse to ministerial reshuffles and could only do pseudo-ministerial reshuffles after a number of his Ministers resigned to pursue their presidential ambitions.

There have been no corresponding satisfactory results observed by Ghanaians until now. Additionally, the actions of this government have revealed the level of insensitivity on its part towards Ghanaians. For instance, there have been loud calls for the removal of the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta from office by both Majority and Minority Groups in Parliament. President Akufo-Addo presumably heard and did nothing to date.

The level of greed in terms of extracting gold via galamsey operations has reached its unenviable proportions with the complete devastation of our Forest Reserves and water bodies in mining communities. The good old Prof. Kwabena Frimpong-Boateng’s report on the status of the galamsey menace under Nana Akufo-Addo showed that the galamsey practice is enabled by ‘Presidential Galamseyers’
making the fight extremely herculean.

The failed manifesto promises of the NPP together with slow or stagnant developmental projects in the areas of roads with numerous potholes worsening, struggling healthcare delivery, agriculture, and education sectors, and bad economic indicators are worrying, to say the least.

The unpopularity of this governing NPP regime is not surprising under the current circumstances of the country. President Akufo-Addo will go down in history as the worst-performing President of Ghana in the Fourth Republic. His regime has been a great disappointment to many. This is owing to the continuous trajectory of unbridled national borrowing, worsening economic indicators like inflation and exchange rate hikes, perennial floods, poor healthcare with the high cost of dialysis for renal patients, and the emboldened corruption animal eating the nation up under this Akufo-Addo-led government.

If no sustained pressure from Ghanaian Youth and other well-meaning Ghanaians including key stakeholders is put on this appalling Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime, do not expect anything substantial to be done. As it stands now, President Akufo-Addo has nothing to lose politically as he needs no more votes from Ghanaians and will easily ignore their cries if no sufficient noise is made now before his regime ends next year.

This phenomenon of appallingly bad economic, social, and environmental situation in which we find ourselves under this Akufo-Addo-led regime is indeed concerning. The only way to see improved governance in our country will be by voting out this unsatisfactory governing NPP regime in 2024.