Cursing The Enemies

President John Dramani Mahama

We hope that President John Mahama did not mean it when he rained curses on persons he described as enemies and who were supposedly uncharitable with the late President John Evans Atta Mills.

We would like to think that he was referring to political opponents when he made the reference and not enemies.

We believe that the president, who knows the workings of a democratic system, does not have any qualms critiquing a government. But if he now has, then it could be because he is a president and has just taken over from President Mills, leading a party in which unusual things including misrepresentation of conventions are the order.

One of his first remarks as president was plaintive in nature, moaning, as it were, about how the departed head of state was subjected to a barrage of insults, vilified by implication, an ordeal which according to him killed him. They would be dealt with by God, was the implication of his remarks.

His boss, before transitioning to the spirit world, was a democratically elected president who appreciated the importance and role of such critiques in the advancement of democracy.

If the media and political observers were expected to look on as the ship of state listed, in his estimation, when the deceased was in charge, we would have been out of tune with democracy.

The deceased was not hated but the various stakeholders were only doing their work in total consonance with the dictates of democracy, period!

To therefore be picking bones with those who expressed dissatisfaction with some policies and direction of the deceased when he was in charge of the ship of state, as President John Mahama is doing now, is one which would not endear him to the good people of this country, especially the lettered who understand that such critiques are standard practice in democracies.

Counseling his party's radio station hawkers to sheath their swords when this is not matched by moderation in his public place remarks would present a semblance of double standards.

Taming the NDC hawks, as the president wants us to believe he is ready to do, would be a Herculean task, especially if he himself passes politically unwholesome remarks even on funeral grounds.