John Mahama Is “Chalk-Butt” Naked!

We have already exposed the gaping lies that he told on Facebook a couple of days ago, that he had the best Freedom of the Press Record in Africa during his four-and-half-year tenure as President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, just about the same time that Ghanaweb.com decided to block the email address of yours truly and impose a total blackout on his column contributions to the country’s oldest and most heavily patronized privately owned internet portal. That period, of course, was from 2012 to 2017. So, we shall not waste anytime here rehashing an already told story.

What needs highlighting here, however, is the fact that under his tenure, “common chalk” was a scarce instructional commodity to even basic or elementary school pupils in the country, as Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia recently told a conference of Ghanaian media practitioners, on the anniversary of World Press Freedom Day. The fact of the matter is that a President who could not provide this most common of instructional material to elementary school pupils and their teachers to write with, simply could not be expected to guarantee free speech; and a leader who does not believe in free speech cannot be expected to cherish press freedom. It is as simple as A, B, C! (See “Mahama Couldn’t Even Provide ‘Common Chalk’ for Schools as President – Bawumia” ClassFM.com / Ghanaweb.com 5/5/20).

I vividly recall the infamous Kukurantumi Episode that transpired between Mrs. Juliet Oppong, the Headteacher of the Kukurantumi Presbyterian Primary School, and then-Second Lady Matilda Amissah-Arthur, who had just presented some five computers to the school which were not really needed, because the school had not been fiber optically wired up to enable it to make use of the same. Now, that goes to show you, Dear Reader, the abject lack of priorities on the part of the Mahama/Amissah-Arthur government. So, the logical question to ask here is the following: Where in the world did Candidate Mahama get the money to purchase the facial masks and the Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) that he started distributing around the country in the wake of the Coronavirus Pandemic?

We think we know the answer; and it is that such wherewithal very likely comes from the moneys contractually extorted indirectly from the Ghanaian taxpayer in the form of such payola rackets as have been reliably alleged to have been criminally negotiated by the Mahama Posse via such purchases as the military aircraft that were sold to the extant Government of Ghana by the manufacturers of the Brazil-made Embraer Jet Planes, which was allegedly being investigated at the time of the “mysterious death” of President John Evans Atta-Mills. And then we have the equally reliably alleged payolas extorted from both the Ghanaian taxpayer and the European Airbus SE Company that has been staunchly, vigorously and shamelessly defended by National Democratic Congress’ stalwarts like Messrs. Haruna Iddrisu, Mahama Ayariga, Inusah Fuseini and Mrs. Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, the former Mahama-appointed Attorney-General and Minister of Justice.

Then, there is also the Turkey-based AKSA Energy Company’s Payola Racket that led to the recent resignation of the Managing-Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR). Then, there is also the globally infamous Affair de Woyome, in which virtually every leader who mattered in the top hierarchy of the National Democratic Congress was implicated, in particular the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, then-Vice-President John Dramani Mahama, Attorney-General Betty Mould-Iddrisu and the latter’s Deputy, namely, Mr. Ebo Barton-Odro, and the extant Atta-Mills-appointed Finance Minister, namely, Dr. Kwabena Dufuor, if memory serves yours truly accurately. The fact of the matter is that Candidate Mahama and his lackeys and cronies of the National Democratic Congress could not be genuinely campaigning to be returned to power so that they could continue with the progressive and visionary development agenda of the Akufo-Addo-led government of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), even as Nigeria’s Nobel Literature Prize Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka had occasion to poignantly lament recently.

According to Prof. Soyinka, it is only in Africa, actually Ghana, truth be told, that the thievish Mahama Posse could be regrouping and scandalously staging a political comeback with a vengeance, instead of serving well-deserved time in the slammer with hard labor. The painful irony, according to the erudite poet and playwright is that the Mahama Posse is being curiously celebrated by the very youths whose future was criminally robbed from them by the previous Mahama regime. It is also risible to hear Candidate Mahama talk about his intention to exponentially expand physical plant facilities at the nation’s medical schools in order to ensure a doubling of the intake of medical trainees.

Coming from a former President who could not even provide “common chalk” for the use of our elementary school pupils and their teachers, Candidate Mahama sounds revoltingly insulting to the intelligence of eligible Ghanaian voters and citizens. God help us!

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

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
English Department, SUNY-Nassau
Garden City, New York
May 6, 2020
E-mail: [email protected]