Deliberately silent Ghanaians under Akufo-Addo should continue to be silent under Mahama

Let me borrow the emotionally rhetorical question of the Chief Justice (CJ), Gertrude Torkornoo to Speaker’s Lawyer, Thaddeus Sory during the just ended Supreme Court (SC) proceedings regarding the vacation of 4 seats in Parliament and ask all those previously vocal opinion leaders including men of God; ‘What is going on?’

As I write this piece, I am equally emotional to rhetorically ask why this insensitive and reckless Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime was not held to account for their excesses and impunity in government for the past 8 years by Ghanaians unlike what happened in the first term of President Mahama.

Let me remind Ghanaians once again on just 3 key crises under this insensitive and disappointing outgoing Akufo-Addo-Bawumia.

Economic/energy crisis
Despite the rhetoric of this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led government to be better Managers of the economy, it turned out to be highly an appalling performance. This Akufo-Addo's regime is known to be the worst, most borrowed and most reckless President in the 4^th Republic. The national debt of the country was taken from GHS122 billion in 2016 to about GHS 800 billion in 2024 and is still counting. All other economic indicators e.g. exchange rate, inflation rate, interest rate, etc. are going in the wrong direction and getting worse by each day.

This is the first time that the government of Ghana was unable to timely pay her domestic and international creditors and forced creditors to undertake serious haircuts in a draconian domestic debt exchange program (DDEP) as well as external debt restructuring. This Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime can be likened to the Acheampong-led Military government in the 70s for refusing to service his external debt obligations.

In the energy sector, there has not been improvement in investment to better manage this critical sector. The financial challenges of the independent Power Producers (IPPs) and poor performance of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) leading to intermittent dumsor situations in the country and threats of closedown of IPPs are highly unfortunate. At what cost are our lights being put on now during several unannounced dumsors? Ghana is not only in economic crisis but also in energy crisis.

Corruption & moral crisis
President Akufo-Addo promised Ghanaians while in Opposition that he would protect the public purse. It was rather under his Presidency that the public purse was looted by his actions and inactions. There have been over 100 corruption scandals e.g. botched Agyapa deal, BOST contaminated oil, Number 12, National Cathedral Project scandal, etc. On the moral front, there appears to be a moral breakdown in Secondary schools and in the country as a whole under this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime.

Galamsey crisis
This Akufo-Addo-led government turned the well-known traditional galamsey into high-tech galamsey (HTG) to devastate our major rivers and forest reserves in the country. The Frimpong-Boateng’s galamsey report in 2019 revealed ‘Presidential Galamseyers’ who made the fight against this socio-ecological problem a daunting task to subdue. The very existence of our country is threatened by this HTG phenomenon, if unchecked. Nana Akufo-Addo insincerely put his Presidency on the line but had nothing to show for his public pronouncement. This showed Akufo-Addo’s insincerity and lack of commitment to tackle this menace. The voices which mattered were simply not loud enough to compel Akufo-Addo to act in the interest of the country instead of parochial NPP’s interest, when it comes to the fight against HTG. This loud silence by critical voices of Ghana is highly worrying and it is a threat to our fledgling democracy.

Arrogance of power
Starting from President Akufo-Addo to his Appointees, there has been show of arrogance of power in the past 8 years. President Akufo-Addo was seen at occasions ordering traditional chiefs to stand up and greet him. He also made some unpresidential comments like people could vote for the NDC if they so wished in Kumasi and asked one of the Volta Chiefs to complete an E-Block in the Volta Region, if he felt work was slow. Also, the sheer impunity among government officials pointed to the arrogance of power in this government.

Silent voices of Mahama’s critics
Under the first term of President Mahama, there were numerous critical voices in society that were given leverage to express themselves openly. This paved way for many men of God, individual opinion leaders, CSOs and other stakeholders including Peace Council, the Aglow outfit by Gifty Afenyi Dadzie, etc. to cleverly chastise President Mahama then.

As soon as the outgoing President, Nana Akufo-Addo became President in 2017 till 2024, those critical voices in society were loudly silent. This sudden silence from the public made this Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led regime to be more complicit, incompetent and acted with high degree of impunity until Ghanaians massively voted them out on December 7, 2024.

Now that President Mahama is coming back to the Presidency for the second time, there is high tendency of those parochial voices that suddenly emerging and want to be heard again. This is sheer hypocrisy and any of such individuals and institutions who are looking on and saying nothing about various crises under the Akufo-Addo should be exposed for their double standards.

Call to action
Finally, Ghanaians have chosen a listening, experienced and more accountable President after Akufo-Addo in the person of John Dramani Mahama to reset the economic, corruption, energy, moral, galamsey mess created by the ousted Akufo-Addo-Bawumia-led government.

Rebuilding this troubled country within 4 years under President Mahama and the NDC from January 7, 2025 will not be easy. A collective call is made to all of us to be good and faith citizens to our great and strong and again.

The change we badly need has finally come and we should stand to be counted in the resetting and rebuilding process of our nation despite obvious challenges to be encountered on the way to recovery and sustainable development.

Those deliberately silenced voices should also remain quiet and allow those who dared to speak truth to power during Akufo-Addo’s era to also checkmate President Mahama’s performance in his second term.

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