Know ye, Dr Bawumia, that like the Holy Trinity, the Driver, the Mate and the Tro-tro are one

I am not one whose sympathies are with Dr Mumuni Bawumia over the quagmire in which his campaign to become Ghana’s next president finds itself. It is undeniably caught in the proverbial between the devil and the deep blue sea conundrum; the devil on one side, death the other; a damn you do, damn you do not situation in which there are no winners. Only losers. It was so during his drive for the party’s nomination, is so today after winning the nomination and will remain so long after the general elections, win or lose.

Simply told, how does he, the Vice president, the closest constitution-mandated working partner pf the President wrap or extricate himself from the colossal failures of the Nana Addo administration, failings that have driven the nation into bankruptcy and is tinkering on the brink of a failed state? Evidently there is nothing worth a rat’s butt this administration has done for which a serious candidate would want to align themselves with. In fact, it is plainly stupid to run a campaign on the second coming of dumsor, taxes, galamsey, failed free SHS, corruption, abandoned projects, inflation, IMF, so-called financial sector reforms, exchange rate, nepotism (family and friends), scandals (Agyapa, PBS, TOR, Cecilia Dapaah, NAM 1), etc. Only your die-hard party poodles and apologists would applaud what would amount to a political suicide. Perhaps I am being a simpleton and naive because strange choices can be made in politics. There is a politician when asked to choose between Ghana Card and thousand interchanges, chose the card. Go figure!

Should he choose to extricate himself, must it be partial or whole and complete? His recent February 7 campaign speech in which he calls himself a “mate” (aplanke) indicates that he is toying with partial distancing. In that presentation he paints himself as merely an advisor with no power to carry through what he puts forward. Whilst at it, he employs subtle language to praise his boss’s magnanimity by giving him assignments whose outcome he would ignore anyway. He admits being on the Tro-tro but only as an aplanke and therefore cannot be held blamable for the vehicle ending up in the ditch because he was not the driver. Problem here is an aplanke is not exactly a do nothing, know nothing, say nothing dumb ass that Dr Bawumia would have us believe. We, therefore, shall not be fooled by this classic trickery of a sly fox wanting to eat his cake and still have it. We know that like the Holy Trinity in Christianity in which Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one, so also are the driver (Nana Addo), the mate (he Bawumia) and the Tro-tro vehicle are one in this unholy trinity of Ghana’s transportation systems. If he tagged along as a deaf, dumb, and blind aplanke, he is most certainly either incompetent, a pushover, at worst a coward who knew not or failed to perform his legitimate duties. Incompetence is a word very well known to the man and his wife. It is the aplanke who loads the vehicle with passengers, orders the driver to stop or move, checks engine oil, keeps the peace in the vehicle and most importantly, controls the heart and soul of the business – the finances. He collects all fares, disburses for operational purchases, and renders accounts accordingly. He and the driver constitute a two-member finance management team. Sounds familiar? Economic Management Team? All things being equal, explain to me how the aplanke can extricate himself from any financial collapse. Whilst at it do the same for the Chair of Ghana’s Economic Management Team.

I dare submit that right now, national revulsion for this administration is such that partial distancing is not an option.

Any attempt at distancing himself would raise serious queries about the moral character and integrity of one who wants to lead a nation. The man is yet to begin shaking off this social media diagnosis of him having profoundly serious allergic reactions to truth, a diagnosis that has seen his name corrupted from Bawumia into BAWULIAR. One may not go that far to call the man a liar, but could he have an aversion towards truth telling? He is a politician and African as that.

Abandoning Akuffo Addo entirely would make him into a bold-faced liar, who, incapable of accepting responsibility for his shortfalls, would betray and deny the obvious. To hell with how ridiculously insane or pathetic his protestations might look to the world. If we are unable to hold him to having done anything because he says he was merely an advisor, a toothless mate, we can at least hold him to his words. And he said so much. We are not about to forget the eloquence and excitement with which he sold the plans and programs of his boss. “We have the men,” he beamed and floated as he announced the composition of the Economic Management Team he chaired. Are we to accept that the incessant “incompetent” jabs he and his bleacher-creature wife took at the former president, the “we don’t need to borrow from the IMF, just toll the highways” or the “from taxation to production” and the famous “when the fundamentals are wrong, the exchange rate will expose you” were all flubs and blubs? Unforgiving media archives hold pictorial records of him, his bleacher-creature missus and others wildly celebrating the passing of E-Levy bill with a huge cake made for dramatic effect. But he stood in opposition to the bill all along!

In the face of a mountain of recorded evidence, any denials by this man would be hypocrisy and betrayal at the highest level. What if he does? Then he has opted to follow in the mold of African politicians before him to whom honor, truth and integrity mean nothing. The complications and implications of these are evident in the socio-economic situation on the continent. It is hard to find characters with such colossal character deficits leading anything anywhere else in the world. Except Africa, where they are heads of states, ministers, law makers, (more like law breakers), religious leaders yaddi yadda. African leadership in effect is easy pickings for foreign interests, agent provocateurs who have become complicit in our own destruction and marginalization.

We grudgingly offer you an option between honor and cowardice. Buck the trend and do right for Ghana and Africa. We are not holding our breath.