Edwinology's Lab: Why President Mahama didn’t attend Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral

President John Mahama has been to China, India, Turkey, Dubai (for Christmas), US, Germany, Japan, Norway, Botswana, Brazil, Switzerland, Ethiopia, UK, Liberia (for Ebola) Kenya, France, Zambia, Niger, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Burkina Faso, Gambia, South Africa.

And he loves reciprocating state visits too like the way you click 'like' on a friend's facebook wall after your friend has come to 'like' something on your facebook wall.

He said no Ghanaian leader ought to travel to Gambia because Yayah Jammeh was a dictator. But guess what? He almost slept there on their last independence anniversary celebrations.

Travelling for funerals are also a part of President Mahama's repertoire of tourism. He has been to Nigeria for Chinua Achebe's funeral and South Africa for Mandela's.

We are not sure if he will ever go to Israel, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Ukraine.

NPP Member of Parliament Matthew Opoku Prempeh aka Napo has been claiming that President Mahama has broken the record for presidential travels.

But that's the opposition. They have a tendency to be dishonest. E-Lab will trust this claim if it was made by a credible institution like say - African Development Bank.

Oh sorry. Obama just called me. He says AfDB lied over the weekend. Sorry.

So in short when Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew died last week, E-Lab knew the President was looking for his new diplomatic passport for the funeral last Saturday.

Honey, where is my passport?
So when is the President coming back? Let's get the Flagstaff House Communication guys.

He didn't go? Really? Like really? He didn't go? eeeeiii!!!

The importance of a funeral for every leader is to witness the profoundness, the deep and raw sincerity with which a citizenry accords its leader even if they disagreed with his style.

There, you can witness firsthand the connection between ordinary people and extraordinary leaders and how people really look up to leaders for vision, direction and inspiration.

Standing in a downpour, Singaporeans reacted as the coffin of Lee Kuan Yew filed past.

Because, really, why should anybody weep for a man they have never ever met, spoken to, touched? Yet Singaporeans broke down at Lee Kuan Yew's demise.

Although many never met him, they met his policies.

Although they never spoke to him, his policies spoke to their daily lives. You can't drop a chewing gum in Singapore without your buttocks remembering painfully, the reckless conspiracy between the mouth and the hand to litter without its knowledge.

Although they never touched him, his policies touched them profoundly. Singapore's government under Lee Kuan Yew was choosing husbands for prospective wives and wives for prospective husbands.

In effect, leaders cannot look useless, look helpless, cannot do less, cannot blame others when they have the chance to profoundly impact their generation.

But Ghana's situation is just a little bit different. Sure government has rolled out policies like the National Sanitation Day and perhaps many others. But the greatest policy is the one he didn't really want to roll out – but it rolled out anyway.

Dumsor.

This was a trip we the people of Ghana would have gladly paid for even if government wanted to impose a Lee Kuan Yew tax on petroleum to finance the trip.

But where was the president?

The only time we really needed the president to travel he was fixed at home, like a fresh screw in one of the China-made door hinges at the Flagstaff House.

Ghana is going through an economic crisis, a power crisis and a local government crisis.

It is a bad crisis. What we need is a good crisis. And really there is such a thing as a good crisis. E-Lab does not believe a good President will have high ratings for tough policies if they were right.

So an unpopular President is not a bad thing.

For example, everybody knows that the foundation of our economy must change. And everybody should know that any fundamental change will be painful.

Take for example Ghana's imports in 2013. We imported $1.5bn in a year. The IMF will give us only $300m for each of the next three years in the bail-out.

It is the height of folly to go for a single tablet Artesunate amodiaquine from your neighbor when you have a box of that malaria-curing drug right at home.

Of course the IMF is not just giving us money. They are giving us discipline too in much the same way a teacher lashes talkatives in class.

Or it is like saying a thief who has confessed his compulsive desire to steal and is surrendering himself to a sharia law to cut off his two hands.

Or if you are superstitious, a local witch wants the whole village to beat the hell out of her to keep her from travelling at night.

You can't help wondering, couldn't there be a better remedy for the thief or the witch or this government?

E-Lab is not saying the government is a thief or a witch.

If a government were to curb imports, it would have to be drastic – and drastic will be painful.

Very painful. Very, very painful - a whole chain of businesses will collapse. Families will greatly suffer. Some businessmen could become paupers overnight.

But everybody knows that this moment of pain is necessary if we are to get out of this one-step forward-five-steps-backward economy.

Mothers love pregnancy, but pregnancy often deforms the most beautiful damsel, yet no woman can be more joyful than beholding those 10kilogram bundles of joy.

Ask Nadia Buari.

So yeah, a government that can be bold will not be a government that would be loved by all of us. We need a crisis. What we are experiencing is not a bitter pill recommended by a good doctor.

No.

What we have is a set of try-your-luck solutions from one of those quack doctors on a dilapidated bus driving from Kaneshie to Circle

Ask anybody in government. And ask Professor Stephen Adei, we don't even have a one-year vision and parliament has two budget statements from government.

We don't know which one government is using – a supplementary budget that has not been approved and one that is approved. Now how can you sit in two different buses at the same time?

The National Development Planning Commission has been planning on how to plan if government gives them the power to really plan.

This is why attending Singapore's hero's funeral will be most needed for the president. He would see how people,and not a party really celebrate a great leader.

Attending a funeral can be life-changing.

So yeah we need a dead goat syndrome. Somebody who will not bow to pressure no matter what because of a conviction deemed honourable.

It is better to be a dead goat for something than a dead goat for nothing. And it looks like the president is a dying goat for nothing.

Edwin Appiah - Myjoyonline
[email protected]