Archbishop Duncan Williams Signals The End Of Hope In The President

Letters to Wogyafo

Mr. President, who I would like to call Wogyafo instead of Mr. President or John Mahama, I bring you greetings from my village.

Mr. President, not to bore you with any long introductions, over the last few days, Ghanaians have been occupied with discussions over the attempt by Archbishop Duncan Williams to spiritually end the rapid fall of the cedi.

While most of the discussions have focused on the Archbishop and his intents, I and a few people I’ve discussed the almost historic event with believe, that this singular act of the Archbishop is one of the greatest indictments on you and the government you run.

Why? One would obviously be tempted to ask but Wogyafo, is it not sad that the much revered Archbishop seems to have lost all hope in you and your competence and would have to resort to spiritual interventions to help stabilize the currency and the economy?

In almost all other countries, and yes, even in our own land, anytime there are such crises regarding the economy, the natural line of action is for calls to be made for the government or its institutions to take control of the situation and end the downward spiral. It is really news and unheard of that such pure governance and economic issues end up being blamed on the devil or and the solutions sought for through prayers and deliverance services. Our God clearly is already occupied with much more serious issues which perhaps only he can handle; why should we elect a man, take care of him and his family, give him all the comfort including trips to Dubai for holidays and end up going to God to solve such problems?

For this to be the case under your reign, is not some show of love for you or a smart way of pushing the blame from you to the devil; no its not. It is rather a depressing signal that the country recognizes and accepts that you and your administration are clueless and outrageously incompetent to the extent that you can no longer be trusted to steer the affairs of this state safely.

And are the Archbishop and all who think like him not justified? They perfectly are.

Wogyafo, first of all, Ghana finds itself where we are precisely because of your relentless urge to be careless. All we are seeing today, the hardships, the depreciation of the cedi, the stalled development etc, directly rests at your doorstep. Accept it.

In your quest to hang on to the power, Prof. Mills’ health and life had to be sacrificed for, you abandoned all sane thinking and decided that it was ok for Ghana to rot; once that ensured your victory at the polls. You opened the treasury, and gave your men a blank cheque to spend as they wanted and empty the State’s Coffers if that was what it took to get you power.

Your carelessness in 2012 is unparalleled in Ghana’s history and is only comparable to the recklessness leaders like Sani Abacha and Mobuto Sese Seko have become ‘renowned’ for. Ghanaians are today bearing the brunt for your singular decision to sink Ghana to keep political power; you obviously qualify as the most irresponsible leader Ghana has ever had just on the basis of your six month first term Presidency.

We are now suffering from the effects of your theft of our taxpayer’s money to distribute 4×4 vehicles to Chiefs and elders across the country, salon cars to thousands of ladies, ‘buy’ faces in the entertainment industry and engage in very rigorous and shameless vote buying across the country.

In Lawra and several other places, NDC agents were clearly seen sharing 20 and 50 Ghana cedis notes to voters in queues on December 7th. Together with these blatant acts were worse acts of compromising the electoral system as was clearly seen at the Supreme Court.

To facilitate some of these acts, various funny schemes were conjured to continue in the spirit of creating, looting and sharing. It is through this effort that we saw the flagrant abuse of the GYEEDA programme, a so called attempt to grow trees in the North in Harmattan, a very funny scheme involving Guinea fowls, the Subah scheme and a lot more of such which were created for the sole purpose of transferring money from our consolidated funds into campaign accounts of the NDC and John Mahama.

It is very funny that today, you turn round to pretend that you are the one fighting corruption. Your conscience is not even pricked? Wow.

Just to digress a bit, with your attempt to prosecute Mr. Abuga Pele for the GYEEDA mess, do you want us to believe that monies running into a billion Ghana cedis were released to an Authority and the Presidency had no idea? It is either you are criminally negligent or think we are a nation of baboons who will swallow such ananse stories. How is it also that Mr. Philip Assibit who is facing prosecution with Mr. Abuga Pele, was your very close friend at the time the monies were released to him by GYEEDA? How true is it that the mega Discovery Hotel he built in Tamale in 2012 in a record time of about 4months is actually owned by you? And how true finally, is it that he is being prosecuted because he has fallen off with you?

These are questions we will probe more into, in subsequent days.
But back to the main issue, Wogyafo, the bottom line is, how could this crisis not have happened when you were so reckless? Clearly, the cedi depreciation today is mainly because of the excess liquidity in the system which is not matched by any serious production or economic activity. The Judgment Debt payments, the GYEEDA, Akonfem, Afforestation, Subah and several other fishy schemes and the blatant spending in 2012 have ensured that there is too much liquidity in the system, which will only cause a weakening in the strength of our currency.

To shift blame, some of your appointees have given so many excuses. Some have attributed it to high rise buildings while some have attributed it to metaphysical reasons, explaining that it was because you were sworn in on a Wednesday. These reasons obviously can’t be taken serious and we shall not waste any time on it but it shows how serious a joke your government has become. It is either you filled your administration with a bunch of comedians or that your government is now in the comedy industry.

Some have also smartly tried to blame the structure of the economy, what such people forget is that the cedi has seen various periods of stability under this same structure of our economy. Ghana was not producing cars and airplanes between 2003 and 2007 when the cedi depreciated by an average of 2.7% annually? More importantly, there are various other countries with a similar structure like ours who have very stable currencies and have had very stable currencies from 2012 till date.

Mr. President, whatever we are seeing therefore is down to your irresponsibility! You clearly agree the crisis we are seeing in our economy is down to indiscipline; you stated that when you met the Barclays CEO, only that you very funnily tried to blame other governments. Which governments Wogyafo? You’ve been in power for close to 6 years. Hello! And on that, Wogyafo, next time accord your office some dignity and check your mouth. It is unheard off for a President to be revealing governance secrets about pressures to fire a Finance Minister to an absolutely powerless person publicly. What did you expect the Barclays Boss to do after those complaints? For all you know, that statement worsened the plight of the cedi because it clearly betrayed a lack of trust in the managers of the economy and revealed that the economy was in much serious distress than we are seeing.

In any other country, that statement could have collapsed the Markets and brought the economy crushing down.

Wogyafo, perhaps, all these show that the Archbishop was not too wrong when he called for Satan to take his hands off you. Some of your actions right from July 2012 and even before, when you were Vice President defy rational thinking and might be only explained as the work of the devil through you. Maybe we need to all join the Archbishop in saying – “Satan Take Your Hands Off Our President”.

Your friend,
Masud Dawood Bawa