What Dress Rehearsal, President Naked?

About all that one can say about a shameless and pathologically and grossly incompetent President John Dramani Mahama, campaigning and making his characteristically vacuous hustings promises in the Talensi bye-election on Sunday, is that the man is too butt-naked hollow and shallow to talk about Tuesday's election's being a mere "dress rehearsal" for Election 2016 (See "By-Election Dress Rehearsal For 2016 - Mahama" Graphic.com.gh / Ghanaweb.com 7/6/15).

The fact of the matter is that if GYEEDA did not bring the people of Talensi any appreciable level of development, I don't know what level of development an IMF-World Bank economic-receivership government will be able to bring into the kitchens and dining tables of the people of Talensi. But at least the decision by Mr. Dead-Dog to campaign in the constituency that his National Democratic Congress (NDC) party lost in the 2012 general election had one redeeming aspect to it; and it was the fact that the former NDC-MP from Gonja-West used the occasion to honestly admit that Election 2012 might not have been clean and convincing, after all. "Our victory in 2016 would be so overwhelming that the New Patriotic Party would not go to court to contest the results, Mr. Mahama is reported to have gibed.

Ironically, what Mr. Mahama conveniently left out of his vaunt is the fact that Mr. John Akologo-Tia, the booted Mills-Mahama Information Minister's trouncing by the NPP parliamentary candidate was so convincing as to render the cabinet appointment of Mr. Akologo-Tia decidedly irrelevant in the scheme of the Mahama political gamit. The voters of Talensi must not forget this rude and crude political slighting of one of their own. Mr. Mahama also boasted that the NDC was going to increase its 17,000 votes in the 2012 parliamentary election in Talensi by 3,000 up to 20,000. That, of course, automatically assumes that the people of Talensi have little memory or absolutely no sense of the gross incompetence, untold corruption and acute hardship brought upon their heads by the Mahama-led government of the National Democratic Congress.

They may also do well to remember why the victorious NPP candidate for Talensi in the 2012 parliamentary election was recently elevated to the noble and enviable status of Paramount Chief of the Talensi Traditional Area, while the NDC only decided to field a retired second-bananas of the Ghana Prisons Service as its 2015 bye-election parliamentary candidate. Why not let this jaded jail-keeper enjoy his well-needed rest among his family members, relatives and friends? In other words, rewarding the Mahama-led National Democratic Congress with the Talensi parliamentary seat would be tantamount to a travesty of Justice.

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Garden City, New York
July 6, 2015
E-mail: [email protected]