Re: Why did President Mahama cancel his book tour just before the death of President Mills?

Hello Christina Bonsu, you wanted to know why the President (the then Vice-President) cancelled his book promotion tour in Atlanta and Seattle. This was after he fulfilled the events in New York, Texas and Los Angeles in California.

Obviously, if the then Vice-President Mahama was unexpectedly called by the State Protocol to wrap up and return home, due to the severity of the late President's condition and as Vice-President, it was duty bound on him to cancel these events-which got to do with his personal memoir to attend to a more pressing affairs of the nation. Especially, since the late President was incapacitated. And it is out of courtesy for me and you to expect that information release to the media for our consumption.

Christina, as a patriotic Ghanaian, I don't think you would have expected our President to continue with his book launching events, when he was requested to come home and steers the affairs of the nation, because the country could not be left ungovernable and he regarded the affairs of the nation more important than the book launching ceremony, which is a personal initiative.

I hope you would be convinced and stop reading 'meaning' into actions taken by the President in the interest of the nation. Of late, the President has been subjected into various forms of attacks, left, right and center, by the NPP cronies and surrogates both home and abroad, regarding his book. They would misquote and misinform people about the implications of certain narratives. The worse of it was what the NPP New York Director of Communications wrote which I rebutted recently. It was entitled, “JOHN MAHAMA CAN NEVER BE TRUSTED”. He accused the President of not utilizing the expertise of local or Ghanaian publishers for his book, and thereby implied that the NDC government does not want the Ghanaian Private sector to thrive.

The author of this article, Amponsha Spanash exposed his sheer ignorance and intellectual dishonesty-due to his reluctance to make indepth research to set the record straight. I know it has shocked Mr. Spanash, and many gurus of the NPP, who would never see anything good with our President to read a sub-heading in my rejoinder to that article that, His Excellency President Mahama hired the service of a Ghanaian publishing consultant, Meri Nana Ama Danquah, who coincidentally, happened to be a direct niece of Nana Akufo Addo. Indeed the world is a small place.

So Madam Christina, I do not know if you support NPP. But if you do, there is nothing wrong with that. The most important thing is to observe issues through the lens objectivity, and not to be as myopic as the NPP communications team, who would try to blow things out of proportion, in order to score cheap political points. After all their days of another humiliating and shameful defeat are numbered, come this Friday, God willing!

Husseini Y. Baba AlWaiz, Press Secretary, NDC New York