Rejoinder: Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s Stewardship To The NPP During President Kufuor’s Administration (I)

Dear Chief Obosu,

I wish to quickly respond to your article, which is craftily presented to misinform unsuspecting party members into believing that Dr. Bawumia was somehow the breath of life, without which President Kufuor’s much-talked-about economic achievements from 2001 to 2008 wouldn’t have been possible.

Quite honestly, I like the way you listed all your academic achievements in the write-up to let people know that the article was written by someone who is very well educated. Quite impressive academic achievements! Congratulations!

Well, I am not as educated as you, albeit I have acquired a few certificates from the college of common sense, in addition to the little education I have, which has enabled me over the years to detect lies, and disingenuous and mischievous acts of people.

When I read your article, I jokingly said to the person who sent it to me, why don’t we remove the Vice President as the head of EMT and send him back to the Bank of Ghana to work as deputy governor, if indeed he was able to achieve all these fairly tale Bawumia achievements.

Chief Obosu, quite sincerely, you left me wondering about something I believe any discerning person would wonder about, on reading your article. I kept wondering why you didn’t write about the economic achievements of the Vice President in Nana Addo’s administration and decided to go all the way back to Kufuor’s administration and tried to attribute some of Kufuor’s major achievements to a worker at the Bank of Ghana at the time.

While I kept wondering, the eyes of my common sense instantly opened and I detected the real import of the article. I saw that the whole article has been written as part of the DMB’s camp agenda to exonerate the Vice President from the current economic situation and let the Finance Minister and his Akyem cohorts be seen as those who are solely responsible for whatever the country is going through. At least I have been told by two of your key guys that now your major headache is how to disconnect from the Akyem root because you think it’s seriously diseased. A kind of disguised Rutolization?

Isn’t it really baffling that someone you claim to be the backroom pillar of Kufuor’s administration, is failing to function as the entrance pillar (head of EMT) that’s supposed to be holding the economy of Nana Addo’s administration from crumbling, but rather usurping the work of Communication and Digitalization Minister? Obosu, don’t you think perhaps we should relocate him to the backroom so that we can get the best of him?

Perhaps, I need to remind you that President Kufuor also had Economic Management Team headed by the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama, which oversaw the day to day administration of economic issues, of which Dr Bawumia, your so-called backroom pillar, wasn’t a member.

Besides, he had a solid Governor in the person of Dr Paul Acquah (who was the real backroom pillar), three brainy Finance Ministers and other fantastic ministers, who worked tirelessly to make his administration one of the best in the history of the country.

Chief Obosu, interestingly, conspicuously missing in your article was the name of Kufuor’s head of EMT, the late Alhaji Aliu Mahama. At least you should have shown some respect to the late Vice President. I wasn’t surprised though that his name didn’t feature in your write-up. You and I know it’s deliberate.

The truth is that you know if you praise the late Vice President for the economic achievements of President Kufuor’s administration, your boss, who is the current head of the Economic Management Team, would be exposed big time for the current happenings in the economy.

By the way, what your article portrays is that if tomorrow Ghana’s economy bounces back, we shouldn’t attribute it to your boss as the head of the EMT. Rather, we go and look for one of the deputy governors at the Bank of Ghana and give him the praise. Perhaps, for the sake of your boss, we should see the whole EMT thing as unimportant.

My brother, it is not for you to tell Ghanaians about the real brains that catapulted Kufuor’s economy to the kind of envious height it attained. Like other senior economists at BOG do, your boss may have helped in one way or the other at the time, but we all knew the main drivers behind Kufuor’s economic achievements. So, kindly spare us the disturbance of your laughable deceitful journalistic acrobatics and theatrics.

If, in your opinion, the Vice President is an unparalleled economic wizard, as you sought to portray in your write-up, be bold to write about his achievements in the economic management of the current Nana Addo’s administration.

Why do you have to travel back into history when the man is the current Vice President and, for that matter, the head of EMT. I don’t think Ghanaians are more interested in economic history than economic current affairs. Wizards are known to do extraordinary things at tough times, aren’t they? So, let your boss do what wizards do. Simplicita!

Moreover, in your subsequent write-ups, don’t shy away from juxtaposing the things he has said in the past about the management of the country’s economy with the things he has done and let the jury out there judge him on his economic prowess or otherwise.

Obosu, I don’t want to believe that you were one of those students who always praised themselves for their good marks and blamed their teachers for their poor marks. Impliedly, your gospel suggests that the head of the EMT ought not to be praised or blamed for what goes on in the economy. It’s really interesting. How duplicitous can you be!

Furthermore, I detected another impression you subtly sought to create with your article. You guys have unsuccessfully tried umpteenth times to create the impression that President Kufuor’s kind words about Dr. Bawumia is an endorsement of him. That’s quite ridiculous, isn’t it.

Ex-President Kufuor, as wise as we have known him to be would not remove his intestines and replace them with cotton wool. He is a statesman and behaves as such whenever he finds himself in public. Yes, he is very careful with his choice of words and that is why any attempt to put spins on his words can easily be detected.

The other day, for instance, you guys shamelessly and maliciously twisted his words relative to something he said about the Vice President, which compelled his office to release a statement to rebut it. Why should you guys do that to him? How desperate can you guys be?

Let me conclude by simply saying that, contrary to the wrong impression you intentionally created, no one has said Dr. Bawumia was a stranger to the NPP government before his nomination as Nana Addo’s running mate. At least we all know he was working at the BOG during President Kufuor’s government.

However, he was a stranger to the party, as he wasn’t a party member. The truth is that he didn’t even see the need to become a party member after President Kufuor did him that great favor. It simply didn’t cross his mind to join the NPP, as his heart remained in the party of his parents until he was offered the greatest gift and waiver of his lifetime in 2008 – the running mate appointment.

Shalom shalom!

E. G. Buckman