Airbus Saga: Posterity is judging Mahama positively and too fast

“It has been without a doubt, one of the most tremendous privileges of my life to serve this great nation as President and to work on behalf of all Ghanaians. I will leave it to history to be the judge of my time and contributions while in that highest office, “As President I have done my bit and made a contribution to the political social and economic development of our country. I would have cherished an opportunity to even do more but I respect the will of the Ghanaian people.”

When former President John Dramani Mahama uttered the above words in December 2016, most of us thought it would take decades for history to judge him, little did we know that he will be alive to see series of vindications. We thought Ghanaians would know the true nature of the man after his demise, just as we now know what a wonderful man Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was.

President Mahama was moving this country forward with all the economic indicators pointing to growth and development, even though there were some inevitable challenges. However, Mr. Mahama was vilified, denigrated, maligned, eviscerated and defamed by his political opponents just for political office. Unfortunately, Ghanaians innocently bought into those malicious and fabricated lies.

The poor and abysmal performance of the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia government in the last eight years have vindicated former president Mahama beyond imagination as far as the socio-economic development of this country is concerned. The current hardship that have overwhelmed Ghanaians after the unprecedented level of borrowings have vindicated Mr. Mahama.

Today, Mr. Mahama has been vindicated again in a matter that has constantly been maliciously used by his political opponents to tarnish his image and reputation, “The Airbus Saga”.

The Office of the Special Prosecutor in its update to the press has exonerated former President Mahama from any acts of corruption in the controversial Airbus bribery scandal.

Even though the former President has constantly denied any wrongdoings, members of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) have maintained that the former president was involved in the bribery scandal. That is their stock in trade, mudslinging and character assassination.

Unsurprisingly to those of us who know what a truthful man Mr. Mahama is, the Special Prosecutor, Kissi Agyebeng has set the records straight in his latest update on the Airbus bribery scandal, saying neither the former president nor his UK-based brother, Adam Mahama, were bribed.

At a press conference on Thursday, Mr Agyebeng said his outfit upon investigating the case found "no evidence" of corruption against the former President.

The report added that, all the processes that led to the acquisition of the Military Aircraft met all procurement standards.

“The OSP investigation found no evidence that former President Mahama was involved or played any role in the procurement and maintenance of the agency relationship between Airbus and Foster and his associates in respect of the purchase by the Government of Ghana of military transport aircraft from Airbus.

“And it appears to the OSP that the direct communications and meetings between former President Mahama and officials of Airbus to close the deal were actuated by good intentions on the part of the former,” he stated.

In the face of numerous malicious, fabricated and unfounded allegations, former President Mahama still remains the most honest, accommodating and tolerant political leader among his contemporaries. His honesty has been his bane, yet the former President has stuck with clean and honest politics, he has been too honest and truthful with Ghanaians and has never tempted to indulge in political mudslinging. After all, his integrity is important to him.

Posterity will continue to judge Mr. Mahama positively because he served this country with honesty, loyalty, commitment and the fear of God.