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Opinions of Friday, 9 October 2009

Columnist: Biakoye, Nana

Spio Garbrah; Where “Feigned Loyalty” Means What?

Ekow Spio Garbrah, the man who thought so highly of himself and thought that the NDC needed him more than he needed the party before the 2006 NDC congress to elect a flagbearer, but ended up being taught a critical lesson in how party loyalty matters, has, out of bitterness, decided to shoot his pen off in the wrong direction.

Hiding behind an article to eulogise Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah, Ekow Spio Garbrah, in his “wisdom” decided to attack President John Atta Mills in particular and his appointees in general.

It is very obvious that Ekwo Spio Garbrah is bitter about the fact that he is not a Minister in the Mills Administration, and he is not hiding his bitterness at all.

For the records; and I state, for the records; Spio would have been a Minister in the Mills Administration if he did not insist that he wanted to be the Foreign Minister. After creating all sorts of problems for Professor Mills via the vicious “Mills is sick and dying” stories that Spio peddled, he insisted on being the Foreign Minister in the Mills Administration.

It was either he became Foreign Minister or he was not interested in any other Ministry.

Was President Mills going to put his Foreign Ministry in the hands of a traitor and backstabber? Certainly not!

Ekow Spio Garbrah, who walks around touting himself as the best brain in the NDC, is hurt that his contrived best brain is not the leading brain in the Mills Administration and so has decided that he will continuously launch attacks on the President to create disaffection for the Government.

As I write this piece, Ekow Spio Garbrah is trying to use all kinds of backdoor tactics to hijack the UK & Ireland branch of the NDC.

The whole idea of hijacking the UK & Ireland branch of the NDC, is for the sole purpose of constantly using the branch to issue anti-government and anti-Mills statements to put the government under unnecessary pressure.

Spio Garbrah and his ilk are on a spree to pursue their agenda of a one-term presidency for President John Atta Mills.

Yes, Spio and his group are the ones helping the NPP to propagate the wishful one-term story.

Spio Garbrah, just like Nana Akufo-Addo, thinks that he was born to be President of Ghana hence his sworn agenda of prosecuting a one-term agenda for President Atta Mills.

Per the thinking of Spio Garbrah, if he is able to prosecute his one-term agenda, he and his ilk will be able to put pressure on the NDC Party to go to congress in 2012; kick out President Atta Mills; elect him, Spio Garbrah as Flagbearer; and then convince Ghanaians to vote him as President.

Yes, that is the childish and wishful thinking of Ekow Spio Garbrah.

Spio Garbrah thinks that even if President Atta Mills will not get a second term, he Spio, will be the automatic choice to be the next President of Ghana. Laughable indeed!!!

Spio has forgotten that he will first have to cross the hurdle of becoming Flagbearer of the NDC before dreaming of becoming President of Ghana. Spio has forgotten that in December 2006, at the NDC’s congress to elect a Flagbearer, he managed a miserly 146 votes when Professor Atta Mills was clocking close to 1,400 votes.

When Professor Mills was clocking over 81.4% of valid votes cast, Spio Garbrah was in the 8.73% single digit region.

That is the extent to which Spio is not popular within the party. Indeed, he has no constituency he can call his own. He has a collection of hangers-on who are fanning his ego and making him behave like the king who walked around naked but was praised by his praise singers for wearing the best clothes. For some strange reason, Spio Garbrah thinks that if he is able to push President Mills out of the way, he will become the automatic choice of the NDC. Spio Garbrah must really have a mindset that is good for orbiting in the realms of fiction.

Besides, who says that Ghanaians are ready to make Spio Garbrah the next President of Ghana?

If Spio Garbrah cares to drop down from his world of fiction and get real, he should go and ask Akufo-Addo why Ghanaians decided not to give him the mandate to move Ghana forward in the wrong direction.

If Akufo-Addo will tell the truth, he will tell Spio that Ghanaians did not vote for him (Akufo-Addo) because of his character traits, which do not include, humility.

Akufo-Addo is an egoistic character, and so is Spio Garbrah. Akufo-Addo is not humble, and so is Spio Garbrah. Akufo-Addo thinks that Ghanaians must be honoured to have him as President, and so does Spio Garbrah. Akufo-Addo and Spio Garbrah, “are one”, and that is why some of us know it for a fact that Spio Garbrah is wasting his time thinking that Ghanaians will vote him as President of Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana.

As somebody will say; “Spio Garbrah is the Akufo-Addo in the NDC”. I agree 100%. I am not a clairvoyant but I can say with all the authority at my disposal that Spio shall NEVER become President of Ghana.

Spio Garbrah is audacious enough to talk about people getting appointments in the Mills Administration because of “feigned loyalty”?

Honestly, Spio Garbrah is a character that must rather exist in a movie than in real life. Feigned loyalty indeed!

Was it not Spio Garbrah who told NDC members that Professor Atta Mills was a sick man who was going to die and so should not be voted as Flagbearer of the Party? And that is extreme loyalty huh?

Was it not Spio Garbrah who used papers like the Chronicle, Daily Guide, Statesman, and other anti-NDC papers to rundown Professor Atta Mills? And that is extreme loyalty huh?

Was it not Spio Garbrah who said that Professor Atta Mills was over 60 years and so did not have the thinking capacity to manage the affairs of state? And that is extreme loyalty huh?

Was it not Spio Garbrah who said that the civil service retires people after they have clocked 60yrs and so Professor Atta Mills, once he was more than 60, should retire from politics? And that is extreme loyalty huh?

Even after Professor Atta Mills was elected as Flagbearer of the NDC, how many times did Spio Garbrah and his ilk not scheme to get the Professor replaced because they said the man was sick and dying? And that is extreme loyalty huh? I am sure Spio did not know what he was talking about when he threw in the issue of “feigned loyalty”. He must have just put words together without knowing that he was exposing his extreme disloyalty to Professor Mills.

People resigned their jobs to work with Professor Mills in opposition at the time Spio Garbrah was enjoying his fat salaried CTO job and creating disaffection for Professor Mills via the “Mills is sick” story; yet Spio wants to create the impression that he is the most loyal pro-Mills person and that those who sacrificed to push the Mills agenda, are feigning their loyalty. Look at the pot calling the kettle black.

Spio Garbrah says the Mills Administration is slow because NPP people are not being thrown into jail.

For a person who claims to be a “TEAM A” player, and is the best brain in the NDC, is he saying that President Atta Mills must go around picking up NPP people and throwing them into jail?

Besides, who made Spio a TEAM A player?

What did he achieve as Education Minister?

What did he achieve as Communications Minister?

What did he achieve as Ghana’s Ambassador to the United States?

As boss of the CTO, what has Ghana benefited from Spio’s “big post?” When he was made the Chairman of the Social Services Committee of the NDC Transition Team, did Spio stay in the country to work?

Talking about Transition Team; Spio Garbrah, the man who thinks that he is the best thing to have happened the NDC, even before the results were announced, unilaterally prepared a list of people who should be on the Transition Team, and made himself Chairman of the Team.

Spio did not have his way and that was the beginning of the bitterness. That is why when he was made Chairman of the Social Services Committee, he abandoned the job.

The question is; considering the way Spio mounted a campaign of hatred against Professor Mills and wished the man dead; would Spio have spent a second considering the Professor for a menial job in a Spio Garbrah government let alone allow the Professor to decide that he wants to be Foreign Minister or Chair the Transition Team?

Obviously, the learned Professor would not have been allowed anywhere near a Spio Garbrah government. Do people think that the Professor has water running through his veins such that Spio can spike the man in the heart and wish him dead yet Spio must have his way in a Mills Government?

Let people put themselves in the shoes of President Mills and see if they would have the heart the President has.

For goodness sake President John Evans Atta Mills is a human being just like the rest of us; he is not a saint.

Is Spio Garbrah saying that NPP people must be jailed without following due process?

Is Spio Garbrah saying that President Atta Mills must continue with the culture of political vendetta? God forbid!

So because the NPP unwisely harassed Naadu Mills, President Mills must also unwisely harass the wife of Alhaji Aliu Mahama? Haba!!

Spio Garbrah should please spare us this vengeance sermon.

Those who have fallen foul of the law will be punished but President Atta Mills, the man that he is, will not sidestep the constitution and the laws of the land and rule arbitrarily.

I ask; if the NDC had made a mistake and voted Spio as the party’s Flagbearer, and Ghanaians had gone ahead to make Spio their President, is Spio saying that he would have gone around picking up NPP people and jailing them without just cause and go ahead and rule arbitrarily?

Then we thank God that Spio never became Flagbearer of the NDC and is not President of Ghana.

We are building a Better Ghana and the old and unacceptable ways of doing things must give way to a new era of governing by the dictates of the constitution and upholding the rule of law.

You may have noticed that I have not referred to Ekow Spio Garbrah as Dr. Ekow Spio Garbrah.

Well, I have done so because I know it for a fact that Ekow Spio Garbrah did not defend any doctoral thesis to get a PhD.

In other words, Spio Garbrah is walking around calling himself a Dr. with an honorary doctorate degree. As far as I am concerned, it is a mark of extreme intellectual dishonesty for Ekow Spio Garbrah to be calling himself Dr. Spio Garbrah, when he knows that he did not defend a thesis to earn a PhD. Presidents Rawlings and Kufuor, in their time, received so many honorary doctorate degrees.

If the two men were as vain and intellectually dishonest as Ekow Spio Garbrah, both men would have been referring to themselves as Dr. Dr. Dr. … Rawlings and Dr. Dr. Dr. … Kufuor.

As far as some of us are concerned, Ekow Spio Garbrah is just a walking air-filled balloon and some of us will spare no opportunity to stick a pin into that balloon to call the bluff of Ekow Spio Garbrah.

Nobody is saying that Spio Garbrah must not criticize the Mills Administration: far from that.

All we are saying is that when Spio Garbrah and his ilk, out of mischief and a wicked self-seeking agenda, want to capitalize on the sentiments of some foot soldiers and rock the boat, there are thousands of people in the NDC who will not allow Spio and his ilk to get away with their evil machinations. Spio Garbrah says President John Atta Mills is sinking the NDC boat? Ha! Ha! Ha!

It is rather Spio Garbrah and his small group of wicked self-seekers who want to sink the NDC boat; but they “lie bad!!!”

Ekow Spio Garbrah, we are ready for you and we will really enjoy the game you have started. Let the fire rage on and let’s see who will get consumed first. We are ready to meet fire for fire and I have served notice!

Nana Biakoye