A word for President Mills

It is only a fool who does not change their mind, especially when it is a change from bad habits to good ones. Many people get into a frenzied habit of making a list of dos and don’ts at the eve of a new year. And I am sure you would be very surprised if you heard the wish-list of most people on the occasion of a new year.

People are really doing things behind closed doors. If you followed the impeachment proceedings of Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal, you would fully realize what people do behind closed doors, hence desire to change them at the dawn of a new year. Monica testified that she was having oral sex with the president of a so called most powerful nation in the world, and guess where – the Oval Office of all offices. So it is just right that older men would wish to stop asking younger secretaries for blow jobs in their offices, thieves would want to quit, false prophets would want to stop their pretense. Nothing wrong with new year’s resolutions.

Fortunately or unfortunately, i could not say that about myself. I am not a biblical person, but i know anything can happen at anytime in life, so there’s no point putting on hold bad habits till the beginning of a new year. But i did promise myself one thing – to give former president Kufour and his badly mauled New Patriotic Party a reprieve.

Once power was handed over to the NDC, I said to myself I was going to leave the NPP alone at least for some time, give them time to wake up from the shock of losing power. Let them cool off. They have lost the trappings of power and the pleasure of using 7star hotels and flying first class, the free fuel and the cash. So why go after them when they have so much on their plate to worry about? Their party is near defunct. Why expose them when they stand on the thresh-hold of 'no return'. They must be feeling very dejected. And I wont be surprised if some of them suffer depression. There was no point for me in going after them.

Besides there was so much happening elsewhere. Christiano Ronaldo got involved in an accident near Manchester airport and got his £150,000 Ferrari mangled beyond recognition, Palestinians and Israelis are at war, a UN convoy is hit in Gaza by Israeli fire killing two UN driver, Nissan is cutting about 1200 jobs, the car industry is suffering, banks are no longer lending to each other, Ghana has a female speaker of parliament, women are going to be highly elevated under President Mills - the highest political office a woman has held in Ghana is the position of a Chief Justice thanks to Kufour, George Bush is almost out of office, people are losing jobs all over the world, there’s so much happening and so fast the NPP problems and mistakes in office had to take back stage. I have been wanting to leave the NPP alone and look elsewhere for equally exciting things to write about. The NPP is a party in peril. After all, Islam preaches compassion for fellow Man and I simply resolved to show compassion to the NPP by giving them space to wake up from the stupor of losing power. After all, former president Kufour set free many prisoners who would have been in jail not knowing when they will see loved ones and walk freely. The scriptures preaches compassion and i believe in the scriptures.

But something exciting happened that should not pass without comment. A member of cabinet in the Kufour ‘s government and parliamentarian for Okaikoi North constituency, Nana Akomea repeatedly said on Joy FM’s morning show that the Kufour cabinet had not met in more than 3 months. Now that is outrageous.

The cabinet did not meet when riots erupted in Tamale in October - a serious security breach in a very volatile section of the country, the cabinet did not meet when an Israeli businessman was kidnapped, the cabinet did not meet when curfew was renewed in Gushegu and Bawku in November, the cabinet did not meet when a sitting vice president reportedly got into a fracas with a former minister of energy, cabinet did not meet when the Finance Minister Dr. Anthony Akoto Osei reveled that Ghana’s debt stood at $7.652.46m, Kufour did not assemble his cabinet when it was revealed that the Tema Oil Refinery had incurred a debt of US$168.147, when 300 people were rendered homeless by rainstorm the former president did’t bother to visit the area nor convene a meeting of cabinet, there was an outbreak of Meningitis and yet Kufour did not meet his cabinet to discuss it, there were reports of his staff hijacking enlistment into the Ghana Police Service and again our lame duck president did not interfere or convene a cabinet meeting to discuss the security risk such an action posed to our nation.

It is unbelievable that the president found it convenient to visit the Netherlands whilst pressing issues were screaming for cabinet attention. John Kufour found the time to attend his party rallies but never paid attention to the many problems that was confronting the nation. The excuse Nana Akomea gave for this breach of trust by the president was because of electioneering.

For a cabinet not to meet in nearly 4months when the nation was froth with mounting problems is extremely unacceptable and clearly epitomizes a government that had lost its head and did not care what happened to the health , security, economy and social sectors. It was very good Ghanaians saw through the lack of concern for the people by the Kufour regime and showed them the exit.

Claims by the former government that the economy was it top shape had been debunked by a leaked IMF report. Not that the opinion of the IMF or World Bank mattered, they are our nemesis and have contributed largely to keeping our economies down, but the report to some extent exposes the lies and deception the NPP had fed Ghanaians in the past eight years. Interestingly it was this same World Bank/IMF who praised the Kufour government for the growth of the economy.

It may be difficult for governments in Africa and the Caribbean to get rid of those money hogs, but i sincerely pray the Atta Mills government stayed as far away from the IMF/World Bank as possible. In the event that we deal with them, i hope we enter into agreements protecting our interests than their interests. Let us remember that these Western money mugs are the same ones who let the collapse of many economies in Africa and are undoubtedly responsible for the current recession that has hit the world.

Britain's Secretary for Africa, Lord MarK Mallock-Brown is already in Accra holding meetings and trying to inveigle our new president, let us tread with caution. These same people said most of the nicest things about the Kufour regime.

I trust President Mills will not fall for their sweet words and false projections. We will keep our eyes on the ball and raise hell if Mills signed deals that benefit them more than our people. I have the confidence uncle Atta Mills will not let us down. Ras Mubarak.

mmubarak79@yahoo.com