Backward Thinking Airbus-Kanazoe Mahama

When he met with the Nadowli traditional rulers in the Upper-West Region, recently, while on an electioneering campaign tour of that region, what he ought to have told them ought to have been about what nationally inclusive development projects and programs he had put in place for the improvement in the quality of the lives of the economically distressed Ghanaian people. Instead, characteristically, the stark naked Candidate John “Airbus-Kanazoe” Dramani Mahama spoke childishly about how President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo had exponentially increased the debt stock of our country, and how going by the natural order of things, the former New Patriotic Party’s Member of Parliament for Akyem-Abuakwa-South, in the Eastern Region, would not be alive to repay the borrowed money when the repayment or maturity dates for these loans arrived (See “Akufo-Addo Won’t Be Alive to Repay Borrowed Monies So Don’t Vote for Him – Mahama to Ghanaians” Ghanaweb.com 9/7/20).

Predictably, a “messageless” Candidate Mahama decided to insult the intelligence of the chiefs and good people of Nadowli. There is something clearly wrong here because when Little Dramani goes on the electioneering campaign trail outside the now Five Northern Regions, this stale-fufu-faced Bole-Bamboi Witch-Hunter almost invariably talks about the development projects that he has either undertaken or intended to undertake, in the highly unlikely event of him being afforded another shot at the Presidency. Now, is the use of such tactical change because, somehow, the man who fiercely opposed the introduction of the fee-free Senior High School Policy Initiative by President Akufo-Addo has completely given up on the intellectual and psychological genius and integrity of northern-descended eligible and potential Ghanaian voters?

You see, this devious attempt to frivol or play childish games with the minds of the smart and forward-looking Nadowli chiefs and their people is far worse than the former President’s description of Nana Akufo-Addo’s ethnicity, the Akyem people, as “Mafiosi” and “Sakawa Boys” who were intent on gambling with the future of Ghana. And, of course, true to his morally and economically regressive thinking and twisted logic, Candidate Mahama chose to talk about the national debt stock that the Tracey Boakye’s butts-licker claims President Akufo-Addo has racked up to-date and will not live long enough to repay the same, while conveniently ignoring the fact that during the four-and-half years that he was holed up in Jubilee House, Little Dramani stockpiled more debts than the entire nuclear arsenals of the United States, Russia, France, Canada, India, Pakistan and all the other global nuclear power combined!

Interestingly, Candidate Mahama claims that President Akufo-Addo has nothing to show for all the monies that Ghana’s former Foreign Minister has borrowed in the name of Ghana’s development. Somebody ought to promptly inform this shamelessly thievish politician that when he colluded with Mr. Sylvester Mensah to empty the vaults of the John Agyekum-Kufuor-established National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), it was Nana Akufo-Addo who had to sweat and toil around the clock to find the direly needed cash to make our National Health Insurance Scheme viable again, and the National Insurance Card acceptable by medical service providers, once again. You see, “Age,” as Americans are fond of saying, is just a Number. It is common sense that matters most; and, sadly, it is in this latter mental faculty that is sorely lacking with Candidate Mahama.

Little Dramani also says that the money used for the provision of Nana Akufo-Addo’s fee-free Senior High School Policy Initiative is not part of the total national debt stock racked up by the Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party Administration, because all GHȻ 3.6 Billion that was used to fund the SHS Policy Initiative came from Ghana’s oil revenue. Well, if that is, indeed, the case, then what Candidate Mahama ought to be presently accounting for to Ghanaian taxpayers concerns his fiscal stewardship while he served as substantive President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana. In sum, Candidate Mahama needs to tell us why he had not used the nation’s oil revenue to do some of the same progressive and nationally inclusive programs, such as the fee-free Senior High School System that he is now deliriously fighting to claim credit for.

Then also, Little Dramani ought to account for all the Judgment Debt monies deliberately and criminally racked up by the Mahama cabinet appointees, which the latter unconscionably divvied up with foreign nationals, their portions of which were stashed into offshore bank accounts, at the expense of the hardworking Ghanaian taxpayer and our national development. And, by the way, isn’t it rather absurd for the man who could not retrieve a dime, a pesewa, from Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome to be talking about age and debt repayment? If this is the central theme of the National Democratic Congress’ 2020 Electioneering Campaign Manifesto, then, Dear Reader, this is all the more reason to massively vote for President Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for four more years of responsible and results-yielding governance.

You see, it was absolutely not for nothing that a recent survey ranking all Continental African Leaders on the basis of governance performance, had Ghana’s President Akufo-Addo at the very “pinnacle,” my profound and sincere apologies to former President John Agyekum-Kufuor ala Wode Maya, of the ladder or ranking table. True, John Mahama may be much younger than Nana Akufo-Addo. But when it comes to real leadership and our national development agenda, Candidate John Dramani Mahama is already a dead man. Remember, they said the same thing about Mr. William “Paa Willie” Ofori-Atta and Osu Cemetery? And then what happened to the younger Mr. Imoru Egala?

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

September 7, 2020

E-mail: [email protected]