Don’t Vote For liar To Be President

Feature Article of Friday, 7 December 2012

Columnist: Sarpong, Justice

One enduring human character that is respected is truthfulness. Even in our personal relationships, if somebody is a liar and cannot be relied upon, such a person is viewed as not being serious in life and cannot be trusted and that is what is wrong with Mahama. The man in his personal and professional life as a Politician cannot be believed in anything he says. He has used lies to get to where he is now and it is time Ghanaians bring his lying days to an end by not voting for him.

He has not been truthful to his wife Lordina for his sexual escapades which has led to him not even knowing how many children he has. Let examine the little that we know about his personal life because even as a President and a Presidential candidate, little is known about Mahama nad his wife Lordina, especially little is known about Lordina. What her educational professional background is. The woman is alleged have a problem communicating in English.

In 2008 when President Mills chose him as his Vice Presidential candidate, his initial information about his family said he has nine children but that information was immediately withdrawn and the number of his children was whittled down to seven. Did two of his children die the day after this information came out? The man Mahama has never explained that inconsistency and is being alleged the man has as many as twenty two children enough to form two soccer teams. In 2008 when Mahama was chosen as President, Lordina Mahama granted an interview and talked about her husband being so handsome even her friends thought she was lucky to have such a man. She said Mahama’s handsomeness has led to many problems including women practically throwing themselves at him which led to a breakup in their marriage and she has to leave Ghana for Europe to think about her marriage and that lasted for at least six months.

When you write an autobiography in a book called “My First Coup D’tat” and recount your life passage even when you started school as a six year old child and talked about some schools you attended and what happened to you but fails to talk about your school days at Bishop Middle school in Tamale where it is alleged you were involved in a sexual crime that led to your expulsion or withdrawn from the school, then you are not being truthful. A man has to be a good liar to have so many children outside his matrimonial home and still manage to keep his marriage together or has to be the luckiest man to have a tolerant wife who will accept such infidelity from an elevator eye husband.

Has Mahama been truthful as a Politician? Like his personal life, lies have been his stock in trade. In 2008, he promised Ghanaians that when NDC comes to power, they will make secondary school education free for day students and reduce the fees for boarding students including eliminating students from paying utility bills. Not only did he not reduce fees or made it free for day students, his administration has increased school fees and four years later, this man is calling free secondary school policy as a SAKAWA. Yes, Mahama ‘SAKAWAD’ us in 2008 and he should pay a price for this lie. This man and his 18 brothers and sisters enjoyed free education by the virtue of them being Northerners and he has the audacity to tell us free education to the rest of us is a SAKAWA, what an impudence.

He also initially sold the idea of sending 250 Ghanaian students to Cuba to be trained as Doctors to President Mills as scholarship students and he chose all the 250 students from the three Northern regions and the said scholarship was a SAKAWA which cost Ghana $150,000 per student to be trained for six years costing Ghana more than 37 million dollars which could have trained more than 1500 students in our medical schools. This cost is even mired in controversy as there is evidence that, the cost has been inflated to benefit somebody and that is why during the IEA debate in Tamale, he said it will cost Ghana $30,000 per student in six years instead of the $150,000 actual cost. What is Mahama hiding here?

It is also alleged that, the contract he signed on behalf of Ghana to purchase planes has been inflated which made President Mills so furious he instituted an investigative body to investigate his own Vice President and the committeee members names are known including one Mr Aboah who is a Minister in Mahama’s government but the committee was not allowed to do its work for fear of embaeeassing the NDC administration. Not only has he lied about this contract but other contracts including the Chinese 3 billion loan contract and the Korea STX loans where Ghana stands to lose 300 million dollars without one brick made.

It was Mahama and his Mills government that lied to Ghanaians that Ghanaians will only have to make a one time premium payment on NHIS and four years after making that promise, that policy has not been implemented. It was Mahama and Mills that promised Ghanaians in 2008 when a barrell of oil was selling at the world market for $144 that, it will sell a gallon of petrol for two cedis if Ghanaians voted for them at a time when NPP government was selling a gallon of petrol a little below five Ghana cedis. Did Mahama fulfil his promise? NO. Not only did he not see to it that petrol is sold at two cedis a gallon but has increased the price of a gallon of petrol to almost eight cedis despite the price of oil having gone done from $144 a barrel to less than $100 a barrel today.

This is the situation we have in Ghana where Mahama has used his charm to lie to Ghanaians and he is now promising to create jobs for all Ghanaians despite the fact that, his administration has not created one job in four years unless you are a Ghanaian living on Mars who got one of their phantom 1.6 million jobs created.

Mahama and Mills signed a contract with World Bank when they took loans from that body that restricted the government not to hire any new Employees for the duration of their four years administration and all the new hires that this adminitration has done was done to replace retired workers.

Mahama lied about free school exercise books telling Ghanaians that he has distributed 160 million exercise books whilst their own manifesto talks about only 40 million exercise books distributed.

Mahama lied about having distributed 3 million free school uniforms when it has actually provided less than half a millon oversized school uniforms intentionally made to last school children all through primary school. Mahama lied when he said he has distributed 100,000 computers to University students when students whose names were listed didn’t exist. Mahama even created Sunyani college of education that cannot be found anywhere in Sunyani and ‘distributed’ 100 computers to names lifted from Osu cemetry as students at this Sunyani school of education.

Mahama lied about his pay increase to 12,000 Ghana cedis and when Ghanaians complained about the profligate spending on the Executive branch of government, he faked his annoyance about the increase as if he has no idea about it when his office signed on to it before the news came out.

Mahama cannot be trusted to tell the truth and Ghanaians will be doing themselves a lot of harm if they vote for a man who has no idea how many children he has fathered. You cannot trust a man who calls his own education as SAKAWA and not a good quality. He said free education is inferior when he had free education as a Northerner. You cannot trust anything that rolls out of Mahama’s mouth.

Justice Sarpong

Houston, Texas

(CARDINAL of TRUTH)