Mahama Shut Down Obuasi Gold Mines and Told Otumfuo It Was Hopelessly Kaput

Many Ghanaians may have so soon forgotten this but for the dynamic and the foresighted and the visionary initiative of our lame-duck, twice elected President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who solicited an investment portfolio of at least One-and-a-Half-Billion American Dollars - $1,500,000,000 (USD) - there would today not exist the globally renowned and fiscally lucrative Obuasi Gold Mines, better known as the Asante Goldfields Corporation, which the then President John “I Have No Classmates in Ghana” Dramani Mahama effectively shuttered or closed down in 2014, on dubious grounds that it was no longer viable or profitable. Now, that is precisely what he means when the Serial and the Dynastic Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) talks about his so-called 24-Hour Economy Revolution.

In short, under the grossly incompetent tandem Mills-Mahama government, the Obuasi Gold Mine was effectively decommissioned in much the same way that the National Democratic Congress’ Demolition Squad had done to the President Kwame Nkrumah-established Ghana Industrial Holdings Corporation (GIHOC), comprised of some 140 factories and heavy industrial manufacturing plants, thereby apocalyptically reversing socioeconomic and the industrial development of the country.

Not very long ago, The Asantehene, His Royal Majesty, Otumfuo Osei-Tutu, II, reminded Ghanaians that but for the timely intervention of Nana Akufo-Addo, the Asante Goldfields Corporation would not be in operation today; and that even when he personally earnestly appealed to an extant President Mahama to reactivate it, the Bole-Bamboi native from the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region would bluntly and adamantly tell Barima Kwaku Duah, the Pre-Regius Name of The Asantehene, that the Obuasi Mines had irredeemably exhausted itself of any viable economic utility for the country.

Now, what the foregoing narrative clearly and soberly tells the overwhelming majority of Ghanaian citizens and voters is that the double-salary thieving leadership of the country’s main opposition political party, the National Democratic Congress, has absolutely no visionary and innovative and/or progressive ideas, let alone any comprehensive agenda, to move the country up the socioeconomic and national development ladder, short of criminally, thoroughly and unconscionably dismantling all the great and the remarkable gains achieved under the twice, consecutively elected Akufo-Addo-led and the Mahamudu Bawumia-partnered New Patriotic Party-sponsored government, as Dennis Edward “Miracles” Aboagye, the 2024 Spokesperson for the Bawumia Presidential Campaign, was recently widely reported to have written and published on his Facebook Page or Wall (See “2024 polls: 'Vote against Mahama; he has no innovations for Ghana' — Miracles Aboagye” Modernghana.com 10/24/24).

The “Miracles Man” hit the metaphorical nail smack on its head, for not only does the Mahama and the Johnson “The Mosquito” Asiedu-Nketia Posse not have any innovative ideas to move the country up both the national and the global development ladder, the National Democratic Congress has absolutely no enviable or an emulative national development performance track record to credibly back up its institutional and governance record, going back to 1993, that is, since the inception of Ghana’s Fourth-Republican Dispensation.

Whatever viable industrial development base or foundation that remains in the country today, was almost wholly and exclusively created or built by the visionary and the progressive leadership of both the John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor and the Akufo-Addo-led governments of the New Patriotic Party, and not the National Democratic Congress-sponsored Demolition Squad of the President Kwame Nkrumah-established Ghana Industrial Holdings Corporation (GIHOC), comprised of some 140 factories and heavy industrial manufacturing plants.

The Mahama and the Asiedu-Nketia Posse also has the single most unenviable track record of having racked up the largest amount of Judgment Debts on behalf of Ghanaian citizens and voters, at least $2 billion (USD) at the last calculation. And on the latter count, it is equally significant to underscore the fact that such treasonously ginormous debt was racked up in just four-and-half years of the previous Mahama Presidency. Which is why at the very best, it can only come as a wicked joke to hear the Bole-Bamboi native scandalously assert that he deserves to be returned to Jubilee House so that “He can correct his past mistakes.” He simply wants to be returned to the highest office of the Land, so that he can rack up more Judgment Debts and rig up more Payola Packages for himself and his cronies at the expense of Ghanaian citizens and taxpayers.

Not very long ago, the twice-rejected, one-term former President was running around the country telling some Teacher Trainees whom he and his 2020 and 2024 Presidential Running-Mate had robbed raw like some “Ajangudas,” that in the highly unlikely event of the former Atta-Mills’ Arch-Lieutenant being returned to Jubilee House, the crooked pair would ensure that the very age-old Teacher-Trainee Allowance which they callously and unconscionably and summarily canceled, on grounds of their government’s fiscal insolvency, would get paid back to these scandalously creamed future educators and education administrators around the clock, unlike the present fits-and-starts manner in which these same allowances were being handled by the lame-duck Akufo-Addo government.

Now, does such a promise sound like one that is coming from logically coherent and serious-minded politicians? No wonder then that at least half of the audience of Teacher Trainees and spectators began to quickly walk away from the Mahama electioneering-campaign vehicle well before the infamous political con-man and compulsive scam-artist could finish his mendacious sentence.

Those of our readers who may be tempted to believe such guff and malarky as Candidate Mahama’s being, somehow, capable of improving the living standards of Ghanaians to a level that is much higher and better than has been done or achieved under the COVID-buffeted Akufo-Addo Administration, had better inspect the performance track record of the previous tandem Mills-Mahama regimes vis-a-vis the state and the condition under which the Mahama and the Asiedu-Nketia Posse left the John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor-established National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

Once again, let me repeat this age-old adage from our great ancestral sages and genius thinkers of yore: “Those who want to know the looks of Death had better espy a sleeping person.” To be forewarned, it is often said, is to be forearmed. To the wise, proverbs, of course.

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
Oct. 24, 2014
E-mail: [email protected]