Atta-Mills Deserved His Mahama, Alright

As I vividly recall, the selection of the then recently retired Member of Parliament for Gonja-West Constituency, Mr. John Dramani Mahama, met with swift and stormy disapproval from the Founding-Father of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), the recently deceased former President Jerry John Rawlings, the latter’s wife, Nana Konadu Agyeman-Rawlings, and several leading members of the National Democratic Congress. The concerns of the bloody couple, as widely related to the media by Ghana’s longest-reigning First Lady, was that “John Mahama cannot be trusted with the highly sensitive portfolio of Vice-President” of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana. Mrs. Rawlings did not explain in detail precisely why “John Mahama [could] not be trusted.” But, of course, future catastrophic events would eventually affirm the authoritative misgivings of the Rawlingses and several of their staunchest devotees.

For many of us critical observers of the national political landscape at the time, it was very apparent that Ghana’s longest-reigning strongman and his most intimate partner in revolutionary bloodletting envisaged the Bole-Bamboi, Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, native to be in the mold of a political maverick whom the Rawlingses could not leash or control in the manner in which they had been widely accused of controlling former Vice-President John Evans Atta-Mills. Which, of course, was precisely the reason why many of us were moved to laud the choice of the former Ekwow Spio-Garbrah second-bananas at the Communications Ministry as the presidential running-mate of the former University of Ghana’s tax-law professor. It obviously was a savvy way for Prof. Atta-Mills to vehemently put paid to the widely alleged accusation that he was much too closely tied to the coattails of the former Flight-Lieutenant of the Ghana Airforce (GAF) to be his own man or politically independent from the interference of the Rawlingses, who had been virulently accused of attempting to perpetuate their grips on Ghanaian politics, even in the post-Rawlings era, by firmly supplanting themselves with a docile and a veritable surrogate.

Which was also precisely why Mr. Rawlings’ so-called Swedru Declaration made Candidate Mills a laughingstock among the vanguard leadership of the then-ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP). In retrospect, the public misgivings of the Rawlingses have turned out to be prophetic, since, for instance, nearly 9 years after the seismic and “mysterious” passing of President Atta-Mills, his extant Vice-President still cannot tell the nation precisely under what set of circumstances Mr. Mahama’s then-immediate boss met his proverbial Maker. At best, Mr. Mahama has only succeeded in affirming the worst suspicions of members of the Global Ghanaian Citizenry and the Electorate that President Mills had met with foul play. For example, not very long ago, when Mr. Kwame Baffoe – aka Abronnye DC – the New Patriotic Party’s Bono Regional Chairman, publicly and vehemently challenged Ghana’s immediate-past President to prove that he had, indeed, not had a hand in the inescapably suspicious death of the first Fourth-Republican Leader to have expired in office, all that the late President Mills’ former Arch-Lieutenant could say briefly on camera was this: “I did not kill President Mills.”

Which latter statement, pronounced lamely and sheepishly, aroused far more suspicion than could be deemed to have quelled or squelched. Then also, it was scandalously bizarre, to speak much less about the downright flagitious, that in the wake of the seismic passing of President Mills, his maiden address to the nation as Interim-President saw the former Vice-President Mahama strangely celebrating the fact that his immediate boss had been opportunely and auspiciously removed from the apex of national political power to make way for the accession to the Presidency of the first post-independence born Ghanaian leader. In other words, there was absolutely no palpable demonstration of remorse or even sadness in either the voice or mood of the then-Vice-President John Dramani Mahama. Rather, the late President Mills’ official right-hand man would vigorously campaign on what clearly appeared to be his vengeful payback to his sometime magnanimous prime political benefactor. He would disdainfully accuse both President Mills and former President John Agyekum-Kufuor of having insolently made northern-descended Ghanaian politicians their Presidential Spare-Tires.

Of course, in the case of Mr. Agyekum-Kufuor, there very well appeared to be a modicum of truth to this otherwise scandalous accusation. But, of course, what makes Mr. Koku Anyidoho’s gibe at Mr. Mahama for being too ungrateful and arrogant to have publicly deferred to the man who elevated him to the highest office of the land rather grossly misguided, is the fact that the “diplomatic” archnemesis of former President Mahama clearly does not appear to have critically studied, let alone analyzed, the character profile of the prime target of his barb. The fact of the matter is that when it comes to a comparative analysis of the personality profiles of Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and Mr. Mahama, there is absolutely no contest. You see, the erudite, tough-minded and visionary Vice-President Bawumia is far and away a highly cultured and urbane leader in much the same way that Mr. Mahama may be unmistakably perceived to be pathologically brash and uncouth.

One only has to either listen to or read the 2020 National Democratic Congress’ Presidential Candidate’s Response to the Supreme Court Verdict to his patently vacuous and bogus Presidential-Election Petition to fully appreciate the very sharp temperamental differences between the two northern-born and/or northern-descended Ghanaian politicians. Vice-President Bawumia is a vintage statesman in the Danquahist mode, whereas Mr. Mahama is an irredeemable payola-prone kleptocrat and veritable political opportunist (See “President Atta Mills’ Vice Never Paid Him Compliments – Anyidoho” Starr FM / Ghanaweb.com 3/5/21).

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD

English Department, SUNY-Nassau

Garden City, New York

March 5, 2021

E-mail: [email protected]