Payola-Prone Security Risk Mahama Is Definitely the Most Dangerous Ghanaian Politician

It is a pathetic admission of epic and massive administrative failure on the part of the leadership of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), when the cedi value sum of our national development projects has to be converted into the worst performance of the cedi under the watch of the hopelessly incompetent Jerry John Rawlings-led regime of the National Democratic Congress as a strategic means of hoodwinking Ghanaian citizens and voters into believing that, indeed, the leaders of the much more progressive and visionary New Patriotic Party are as clueless as yesteryear’s Rawlings-chaperoned operatives of the NDC. He is a barely-out-of-diapers young man who has yet to understand and fully appreciate what it means when economists, financial analysts, sociologists and scholars talk about “Quality-of-Life” issues, so Mr. Godwin Mahama, the National Democratic Congress’ National Communication Team Member, can be forgiven for outrageously presuming that he and his clueless teammates could smugly insult the intelligence of Ghanaian citizens and the electorate by being thoughtlessly voted back into Jubilee House, so that they could casually continue with their thievish ways.

You see, anybody who believes that Ghana’s economy ought to be doing as well as COVID-19-hit United States, Britain, France, Italy and Germany, among a dozen other industrially advanced global economic powerhouses, needs to seek immediate psychiatric examination (See “Nana Akufo-Addo More Dangerous Than Coronavirus” Ghanaweb.com 5/9/20). You see, when I started reading the afore-referenced article, I thought that the writer was out to prove his readers wrong about the former President Mahama’s sense of kleptocratic entitlement to the Ghanaian taxpayer’s money, that resulted in such criminal mega-payola scams as the European Airbus SE extortion racket and the Turkey-based AKSA Energy Karpowerhip caper that have been exposed by such world-class anti-corruption sleuths as Great Britain, France and the United States. Well, since the NDC’s Communicator smugly chose to personalize official corruption around the metaphorical polarities of President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Candidate John Dramani Mahama, then, of course, it goes without saying that what is at stake here, on this particular subject-matter, that is, is the credibility, patriotism and the administrative competence of these two personalities.

And, oh, we almost forgot to mention the Mabey Group Payola Heist of a decade ago, in which the leaders of the National Democratic Congress, including, you guessed right, Candidate John Dramani Mahama, were mired up to their neck deep in payola scams. Did I hear somebody mention L’Affair Kanazoe, which was significantly exposed by Mr. Manasseh Azure Awuni, that “first-rate” award-winning pro-NDC investigative journalist, pontifically mentioned by Mr. Godwin Mahama himself. And, yes, we could also mention L’Affair Woyome for good measure. I also don’t know why the critic rather unwisely chose to rope in the critical democratic cultural question of Press Freedom, when the Fourth-Republican Chief-Architect of the Repeal of the Criminal Libel Act, to wit, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who made it possible for clueless Akufo-Addo critics like Mr. Godwin Mahama to spill their swill, has just recently been fact-checked and incontrovertibly established to be absolutely without compare or rival in Ghana’s Fourth Republic.

This is rather farcical; but then, again, isn’t politics among the key operatives of the Rawlings-fangled National Democratic Congress all about farce and absolutely nothing else? Then also, how can one talk about the admittedly brutal killings of Misters Edward Adeti and Ahmed Suale without also talking about the recently exposed questionable moral character of Mr. Anas Aremeyaw Anas and his Tiger-Eye PI jurist-scamming network? Or Candidate Mahama’s deliberate coverup of the brutal bedroom stabbing of Mr. Joseph Boakye Danquah-Adu, the Akufo-Addo cousin and extant Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa-North? As well as Candidate Mahama’s vigorous campaign for the release of Mr. Gregory Afoko, the prime suspect in the liquid-acid assassination of Mr. Adams Mahama, at the time of his assassination the Upper-East’s Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party? How about the inexcusably barbaric pointblank assassination of the Mahama-handpicked Nkwanta-South District Chief Executive, Mr. Peter Kenyenso? How about the age-old inability of Candidate Mahama to tell Ghanaians precisely under what set of circumstances then-President John Evans Atta-Mills met his death? Those who live in straw huts….

Then also, which of these two choices more positively reflects on good leadership caliber, the sort of human-resource development engendered by a Fee-Free Senior High School Policy Initiative, the visionary resuscitation of the Mahama-bankrupted National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), or the unwisely hurried, chaotic and reelection-motivated construction of half-completed hospitals and clinics which only vultures can attend or use? Significantly, it was this same sort of debate that was sparked up between a very young and existentially inexperienced President Kwame Nkrumah and socioeconomic and culturally erudite Dr. JB Danquah. In short, only a fool would fail to recognize the historically unprecedented upgrade in the quality of healthcare brought to Ghanaians by the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party. What kind of hospital builder unconscionably robs nurse-trainees of their age-old allowances? What kind of responsible government takes bribes and allows radio and television stations in the country to freely and recklessly and riotously appropriate our national communications bandwidth?

You see, the caliber of leadership that Ghanaians will be going into the polling booth, come December 7, 2020, or thereabouts, to vote for and elect to take charge of the nation’s business, are visionary, sacrificial and patriotic leaders, not payola-prone scam-artists who think and believe that they have an inalienable constitutional right to rob the Ghanaian taxpayer raw.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

May 9, 2020

E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net