It’s payback time and the NDC is at the receiving end. Ghanaians do not have pity for the NDC because they (the NDC) were the first to adopt that style of politicking.
When in opposition, the NDC formed the Committee for Joint Action, led Kwasi Pratt, and engaged in demonstrations in all the capital cities of Ghana, except in the Brong Ahafo Region where their demonstration took place at Techiman, the market nerve centre of the region. Even when the police refused to grant them permission to demonstrate in Tamale because of security reasons, they defied the police and hit the streets.
Today in John Mahama’s Ghana, demonstrations and strikes have become the order of the day, while the leadership of the CJA has become mute and shameless. Some of them, like Okudjato Ablakwa, Baba Jamal, Felix Ofosu Kwakye, Ama Benyiwa Doe, and even the President himself, who took part in the many demonstrations organised by the CJA are mesmerised by the rate at which people take to the streets these days. They cannot condemn the numerous demonstrations because they know very well that they started it and must bear the pain themselves.
Clergymen, chiefs, intellectuals and traditionalists have all lost the moral grounds to condemn the demonstrations that are staged on daily basis because they failed to condemn the CJA when they were disturbing the Kufuor administration with demonstrations. It pains me so much that ex-president Mills is not alive. He led the demonstration against the sale of Ghana Telecom and promised that when his party came into power he would make sure the contract was abrogated. In fact, he held a placard during those demonstrations against the sale of Ghana Telecom with the inscription: “Ghanaians can manage their own affairs.”
It seems God has refused to open the skies for rain to fall on whatever the NDC has planted. Unlike King Midas in the Greece fable, whatever the Mahama government touches becomes brass instead of gold.
It’s as if a cursed political party in power has incurred the wrath of the Almighty God of Jacob. In the face of all these demonstrations and strikes, Mr. Mahama is asking Ghanaians to bear with his government, forgetting that when ex-president Kufuor asked Ghanaians, immediately after taking over the reins of power, to bear with him whilst he sorted things out, the Mills-led opposition told Ghanaians that there was no time to lose and that meek and mild ex-president Kufuor should stop the talking and do the walking. Somebody out there should tell our President that the crown of martyrdom was won some years ago when Atta Mills was in power, but it has become too heavy to bear these days.
You promised us a ‘Better Ghana’, twisted your lips here and there and teased us by saying ‘edey bi keke”, only to turn around to plead with us to bear with you? You promised us quality education and told us that Free Senior High School education was not feasible only to turn around to tell us that in 2015 your government will implement Free SHS. Meanwhile, teachers do not have common chalk to teach. You also promised us that you would build two hundred community Senior High Schools, yet two years to the end of your regime not a single community SHS has been built, and you turn around to tell us to bear with you.
You see, truth is like a cork or calabash, no matter how hard you try to submerge it under water, it will surely pop up. The lies, propaganda and sheer reckless overspending of the John Mahama administration in the run-up to the 2012 general elections have brought us this far. Six years after coming back to power, the NDC government is more worried about how to hold on to power than what to do with it.
Prophet Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia foresaw what was going to happen as far as the economy was concerned and did warn the government, but his warning earned him insults from the likes of Fiifi Kwartey and Felix Ofosu Kwakye. They even said the man was not an economic whiz-kid as we wanted the world to believe. One of them was so reckless to even say Dr. Bawumia was a disgrace to his parents. Even though Dr. Bawumia is not in government his knowledge in economics was enough for him to know what would befall the nation, and he rightly told Ghanaians and went further to prescribe solutions. Read the thought-provoking lecture delivered by this renowned technocrat at the Central University College:
“I would like to repeat without exaggeration that the Ghanaian economy is in crises. It is time for serious action. If government does not take the right decisions soon, then Ghana would likely have to approach the IMF for bailout before the end of the year.”
When I heard that the John Mahama-led government was going to the IMF for a bailout I saw Dr. Bawumia as an “economic soothsayer” rather than an economic whiz-kid. The guy is simply too good! Dr. Bawumia, the technocrat, saw what the Fiifi Kweteys and the Ofosu Kwakyes did not see. The stack ignorance of these guys has been exposed and I am surprised that they still have the guts to speak on issues.
Did I hear Ofosu Kwakye the other day telling Ghanaians that going for a bailout doesn’t mean the country is in crises? Somebody out there should ask him to tell me the difference between extreme food shortage and famine?
When we say the economy is in crises they say the economy is rather facing challenges. When Dr. Bawumia said 2014 was going to be a very difficult year for Ghanaians, but President Mahama said 2014 would be a happy year for Ghanaians. Then they invited economic gurus, technocrats, chiefs, and politicians to Senchi to brainstorm on the sorry state of the economy.
Barely two months after the Senchi tea party, it had to take the President himself to chair yet another Senchi-like brainstorming at the Peduase Lodge. My dear reader, don’t be surprised to hear one more time that the President this time around is inviting soothsayers, magicians, exorcists, fetish priests and priestesses, palm readers and fortune-tellers to brainstorm or ascertain why everything he touches turns into brass. And do not forget that Anita De Sooso, the NDC National Women’s Organiser, once told the good people of Ghana that the free-fall of the Cedi was as a result of the evil activities of dwarfs.
The reason why some of us incessantly echo our frustrations at the abjectly patronising and contemptuous manner in which the President is taking us for a ride is that, if we keep quiet and the man continues to have his way and finally runs down the economy, we will also suffer the pain.
The other day when Dr. Bawumia delivered his masterpiece and called on the government to stop borrowing, the President went to Kyebi to commission a water project where he contemptuously told his listeners, including chiefs, that he did not borrow to buy drinks or food for himself. He said he borrowed to undertake development projects like the water project he was commissioning, as if previous Presidents borrowed to by drinks and food for themselves. What he said that day was a subtle reply to Bawumia’s master delivery and constituted nothing short of a downright insult.
Then he went to Kumasi to tease Ghanaians and danced to the “Yen Ntie Obiara” song. This particular President continues to use the most offensive language which threatens to question his motives and feelings. Since independence, we have never had a President who uses such insults as “baloney”, “foolish”, or “stupid” on the citizenry. Even an assemblyman will never use such words when addressing people from his electoral area. But this President continues to use such filthy words on us.
It is very clear that President Mahama is on his last lap as the President of this dear nation of ours, but he must sit in his moment of absolute tranquility and think of how he wants Ghanaians to remember him.
If for nothing at all, we will forever remember the late President Mills for his sobriety of tone, refined language, mild reasoning and above all, his decent presentation of conflicting opinions. Of course, he would equally be remembered for the jokes he cracked—like calling back a journalist who had asked him a question and asking the young man: “Do I look like a cat hunter?” That was when the journalist referred him to Dr. Kwabena Adjei’s infamous comment, “There are many ways of killing a cat”.
In fact, President Mahama’s handlers should teach him a few presidential habits and remind him that he is the executive President of a nation of 24 million people.
Stop telling me to stop smoking cigar. Cigars are pure tobacco and have neither nicotine nor chemicals. They are less harmful than cigarettes or alcohol. You better tell Kwesi Biney to stop drinking his Mahogany bitters. Today, in view of the economic hardships, I am going for something which is not insanely expensive, but all the same, of good quality. I wanna light up Buenaventura hand-rolled cigar whilst waiting for the IMF bailout with its harsh conditionality. Ya wu!