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Opinions of Saturday, 21 January 2017

Columnist: Adofo, Rockson

As-salamu Alaykum, Vice Presi dent Dr Alhaji Mahammudu Bawumia

It is only normal, and a feel of pride as a discerning Ghanaian, to write not only to
congratulate our current Vice President of Ghana, Dr Alhaji Mahammudu Bawumia on his
successful electioneering campaign and election to the second highest office in
Ghana, but also to wish him “As-salamu alaykum, a greeting in Arabic that means
"peace be upon you".


Shall God bless him for a job well done! However, the greatest job lies ahead of him
to be accomplished. It is how to get Ghana out of the economic ditch the outgone
President Mahama and his cabal of NDC greedy bastards, courtesy of former President
Rawlings, have plunged Ghana into.


Successfully winning the election, wrenching power out of the hands of President
Mahama and his bunch of the Ghanaian version of the “Arabian Ali Baba and his forty
thieves” is with all intents and purposes, the first phase of resolving the teeming
socio-economic problems presently faced by Ghanaians. The actual difficult problems
of finding the needed resources, the right calibre of experts and honest people to
assist you and your boss, His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo
deliver on your promises to the fullest expectation of the Ghanaian populace are
waiting to be addressed.


There is no doubt about it that you, Dr Bawumia, possess the expertise needed in this
critical period in the life of Ghana to help towards extricating Ghanaians from the
joblessness, poverty and the total dejection they currently find themselves in as
brought to bear upon them by the incompetence, brazen love of corruption, practice of
selective justice, and disrespect for the governed by the recently outgone President
Mahama and his NDC-led government.


As a known gentleman, highly educated and honest as you are to your boss, His
Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo, your government can hopefully
deliver Ghanaians from the economic hardships they are compelled by circumstances
beyond their control to painfully deal with.


It will take expertise strategically implemented, honesty, farsightedness, dynamism
and dedication to duty to be of true or selfless service to one’s country and
people to solve the problems facing Ghanaians today.


As the President is nationally known to be incorruptible and was trained throughout
his upbringing by his parents of cherished memory to respect the laws of the land, so
do I hope and conclude from your public life to be also.


Now, as clean and serious as both of you are with resolute determination to deliver
on your campaign promises to the expectation and admiration of the Ghanaian public, I
shall request of you the following, or suggest or advice you to do as follows.


1. Select people with not only the requisite higher paper qualifications which are
a must, but also, with the needed expertise and honesty to help you to do the job. As
it is in the Ghanaian Akan proverb, “It does not take the hands of a single person
alone to cover the eyes of God” (“baako nsa nso Onyame ani kata”), thus, “two
heads are better than one”



2. Discipline must start from within your government. Make sure the appointed
people to assist you govern the nation are reliable, incorruptible, respectable and
respectful. They must not be arrogant towards the President and, or his Vice
President. They must respect the Ghanaian public and treat them with dignity,
realising that without the electorates, they could not have been in government
today.


3. The appointed persons must have in their minds to have come to serve Ghanaians
but not to be served as it has contrarily always been the mind-set of the Ghanaian or
the African politician hence always seeking to acquire illegal wealth overnight to be
able to command or control people because of their wealth and power.


4. As incorruptible as the President is known to be, he will not take a pesewa
which is not genuinely due to him from the public purse. I know or suppose you are in
the same bracket. If that is the case, then make sure nobody immediately under you
steals to enrich themselves. Those under the people under you will continue with the
same mentality until it comes down to the ordinary Ghanaian in the street to ensure
that he/she does not practise corruption to enrich themselves. That is the only way
to uproot or curtail corruption, the bane of the economic development of Ghana, from
the country.


5. As charity begins at home, so should disciplining Ghanaians to eschew acts of
corruption start from within your government?



It is when we do as suggested above, that the dream of NPP staying in power for long,
to guarantee President Nana Akufo-Addo two 4-year terms in office his health and God
permitting, grant Dr Bawumia two 4-year terms in office as future President with Hon.
Allan “Cash” Kwadwo Kyeremateng also having his turn at the presidency become a
dream come true, thus, a possibility. Anything contrary to that will cut our dreams
short, for that you should know.


NPP, unlike the NDC, will rely on delivering on their promises and the public
confidence in them to stay in power longer. They will not resort to any corrupt
attitudes of devising strategies through bribing certain few people to vociferously
go out to deceive the people telling them to believe that white is black and the vice
versa, or to install election-rigging machines to win elections hence always
obstinately going against the wish of the people to do what and as they want.


I count on you, Vice President Dr Bawumia, to be honest with President Nana Addo
Dankwah Akufo-Addo, each correcting, and redirecting the steps of the other if found
to be veering away from your promises and the public’s high expectations from you.


It shall be well with you if you listened to the voices of the majority of the masses
to do as they want provided it is in their best interest and in the interest of the
nation but not to be like the outgone President Mahama who cultivated the habit of
not listening to anyone who had never been a President of Ghana before.


I end with a quote from Plutarch - “Know how to listen, and you will profit even
from those who talk badly”.


Rockson Adofo