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Opinions of Sunday, 7 January 2024

Columnist: Anthony Obeng Afrane

Was Mahama's presidency divine?

Former President, John Mahama Former President, John Mahama

About eight years ago, the Executive Editor of Africawatch Magazine, Steve Mallory, published a story about H.E. John Mahama which keeps lingering in my mind.

According to Mr. Mallory, many years ago when Hon. John Dramani Mahama was the MP for the Bole-Bamboi Constituency and at the time the New Patriotic Party (NPP) was in power, some members of the ruling party envisaged that Hon. John Mahama could become a president of the Republic in future. It is possible they had consulted a deity to come to that conclusion.

So, they schemed to twist fate by getting him a lucrative international job in the UK as bait to get him out of Ghana. Unaware of this plot, Hon. Mahama went ahead and applied for the job.

Eventually, a letter arrived in Parliament inviting him for an interview for the job. Unfortunately, the Speaker was out of town, and the invitation fell on the desk of a Deputy Speaker who according to the story, secretly replaced Hon. Mahama with himself, and went for the interview in London, but failed miserably and returned home quietly.

According to Mr. Steve Mallory, as providence will have it, the greed of that person destroyed the plan, and as fate will have it, Hon. John Dramani Mahama became president.

This is interesting, isn't it? I'm not surprised that he is everything his detractors are not. Intelligent. Bold. Peaceful. Humble. Skillful. Charismatic. I’m not apotheosising him, I’m stating a fact.

He is the type of person most people will look at again; either with admiration or, more likely, envy. But no one can suppress a cork in water. Let the company of devils use dirty tricks; he would overcome by divine intervention and finesse.

"For the Lord almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?” Isaiah 14:27.