Why Is Mahama Backing Away from His Own Prophetic Declaration?

He has categorically gone on public record as having declared the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to be the most violent political party in Ghana’s postcolonial history. So, it comes as nothing short of downright comical for the nonconsecutively, newly reelected President “John European Airbus SE Payola” Dramani Mahama to be lamely accusing the members, supporters and sympathizers of the presently main opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP) of having set the bad precedent of vandalizing state-owned property all over the country that is, somehow, being replicated by his NDC thugs and ballot-snatching goons, as is being widely reported by the local Ghanaian media, more than a month after the twice Akufo-Addo-defeated former Serial and the Dynastic Presidential Candidate of the National Democratic Congress had been seismically swept back into Jubilee House, in a landslide defeat of former Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia (See “Show NPP you're different; stop attacking public installations — Mahama to rampaging NDC supporters” Modernghana.com 1/9/25).

The “Myth-Maker’s” problem here is that there is absolutely no forensically credible evidence pointing to the fact of the victorious members, supporters and sympathizers of the former President Akufo-Addo-led New Patriotic Party going on the rampage and wantonly, recklessly and criminally vandalizing both privately owned and state-owned installations in the manner being bitterly complained about by Mr. Mahama, in the wake of the complainant’s smashing defeat in the December 2016 Presidential Election, although there are media reports replete with innumerable incidents of National Democratic Congress’ hired thugs and sponsored terrorists knocking down electricity transformers in the Akufo-Addo political stronghold of the Eastern Region and all over the rest of the 16 regions of the country, in a strategic bid to falsely claiming that the twice, consecutively elected Akufo-Addo had not done enough to significantly improve the stygian darkness bequeathed the latter by his immediate predecessor and also, now, his immediate successor, in the runup to the 2024 General Election.

Rather, it has almost always been the members, supporters and the sympathizers of the self-proclaimed “bloody” and the “revolutionary” National Democratic Congress that have been widely reported to have gone on the rampage and criminally destroyed millions and billions of cedis and dollars worth of taxpayer-underwritten and acquired properties, just as has been recently Nreported and publicly acknowledged by President Mahama himself, including the apparently well-coordinated conflagration of the Ghana Medical Stores all across the country.

So, really, contrary to the whole cloth’s mendacity that the Bole-Bamboi native, from the Akufo-Addo-created Savannah Region, would have Ghanaians and the rest of the world believe, the leaders, supporters and the sympathizers of the ruling National Democratic Congress have absolutely no worthwhile behavioral model to exemplarily showcase to their counterparts and their main political opponents. If anything at all, it is President Mahama and his associates and minions of the late Chairman Jeremiah “Jerry” John Rawlings-founded National Democratic Congress who have themselves to blame for the unprecedentedly high level of vandalism, mayhem and the wanton destruction of public and privately owned properties taking place all over the land.

By the time that this sinister wave of post-election political savagery and barbarism is over, it is almost certain that the Mahama government will be left with no other alternative to but spend the better part of the Year 2025 repairing the damage caused by these NDC-incubated troglodytes, instead of “correcting his past mistakes,” much less set Ghana on the path to real development, if at all. One thing, however, is certain; and it is the fact that short of ineffectually tinkering with some of the most vital social-intervention projects and programs established by the recently exited twice, consecutively elected Akufo-Addo Administration, there is a diddly little to absolutely nothing, based on his previous abysmal governance record, that any progressive-minded Ghanaian citizen expects a scandalously vision-bereft President Mahama to have achieved either on behalf of himself or the Ghanaian citizenry at large by the close of his tenure on January 7, 2029.

Other than his largely desultory and slogan-stuck and drawing-board decorating 24-Hour Economy policy agenda, for the most part, the former Atta-Mills’ Arch-Lieutenant almost exclusively campaigned on riotously and rampantly fault-finding with such historically unprecedented Akufo-Addo-implemented career and destiny-changing initiatives as the Universally Fee-Free Senior High, Technical, Vocational and STEM System of Education and the John “The Gentle Giant” Agyekum-Kufuor-implemented and the Mahama-bungled National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

As Yours Truly has already let on to his most avid and regular readers, there is absolutely no breath-holding here. You see, Ghanaians would be extremely lucky if a grossly incompetent “politically born again” Comrade Mahama could simply ensure the survival of both the low-premium National Health Insurance Scheme and the Universally Fee-Free Senior High, Technical, Vocational and STEM Education System, much less be able to significantly improve upon the same. And for good measure, if Kwame Gonja can also ensure that the lights will remain “ON” for at least half of the next four years, then, I dare say that Little Dramani deserves to have a life-size Akufo-Addo-esque statue erected in his honor and to his everlasting memory.

Then also, in the wake of Mr. Samuel “Sammy” Gyamfi, the so-called National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress, siccing some ballot-snatching and destroying mobs of party thugs on Polling Agents and Returning Officers of the Independent Electoral Commission, it rings comically and peevishly hollow for President Mahama to be counseling or exhorting these globally exposed viscerally anti-democratic savages and twerps to comport themselves in such a civically rational and decent manner, so as to make them seem different from the innumerable and feral savages that they inescapably are.

Maybe somebody more level-headed and sober needs to tell the Gonja-Mafia Generalissimo that when you look into the mirror, what you unmistakably and invariably see is precisely a spitting image of yourself! You cannot alter the spots on the hide of a leopard, neither the zig-zags on the body of a zebra, nor the stripes on the neck of a giraffe. It is as simple as spelling “MA-HA-MA.”

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
January 9, 2025
E-mail: [email protected]