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25.02.2009 Editorial

Edward Mahama: The Accomplished Loser

By Daily Guide
Edward Mahama: The Accomplished Loser
25.02.2009 LISTEN

DR. EDWARD Mahama of the People's National Convention (PNC) will go down in history as the only Ghanaian who has contested presidential elections on four occasions and never attained one percent of valid votes cast. 

He is also going to be the only Ghanaian who refused a ministerial position, opted to contest as a presidential flagbearer of his own party and lost miserably.  Dr. Mahama is undoubtedly an accomplished loser as far as the politics of Ghana is concerned and in no time, he will surely be consigned to the dustbin of history. 

This is a man who will never become the president of the country called Ghana.  Probably his dream of becoming the president will materialize when he dies and reincarnates.  

You may wonder why Angel Gabriel has decided to write about this particular politician who is also a medical doctor of international repute.  

I am doing so because as an Nkrumaist and a former Young Pioneer, I have always found Dr. Mahama as a stumbling block as far as the revival of the spirit of Nkrumaism is concerned. 

He has continuously refused to compromise in terms of unity of purpose but has chosen the path of division.  Anytime there is talk of Nkrumaist unity, Dr. Edward Mahama is always the odd one out.  Since the death of Dr. Hilla Limann, and the subsequent take-over of the party by Edward Mahama, the idea of Nkrumaism, on which the PNC was formed, has been thrown to the dogs.  It looks as if the late Dr. Hilla Limann told him when dying that he would one day become the president of Ghana.  

Dr. Mahama is acting like Gulliver Unbound.  Since 1996, this man has always harbored the ambition of becoming president, come what may, as if becoming a president is the only way to serve your country.  If the CPP will rise again, the name of the game is to put The Ropes Back On Gulliver Mahama. 

Since 1992 when the ban on party politics was lifted, the unification of the CPP family has remained elusive because Dr. Mahama has continuously refused to play the ball.  Having lost his bid to become the president of Ghana for the fourth time running, I know he will not need anyone to tell him that he is now a “yesterday's man”.  

The CPP has been moving from decline to renewal and back.  It is all because the man called Dr. Mahama has refused to join hands with other Nkrumaists to help the younger generation understand the Nkrumaist ideology.  In 1979, if the Nkrumaists had not come together, Limann, the flagbearer of the People's National Party (PNP) and later the founder of the PNC, would not have been voted into power.  I sometimes wonder why some people refuse to look back as historians do.  Unity, they say, is strength, but Dr. Mahama thinks otherwise.   

The old CPP was over-burned by history, bruised by coups and as it is moving endlessly from grandeur to decline and back, it got regenerated year after year by the genius of renewal.  But as things start to become right, an unseen hand overturns the apple cart.  Today, the CPP can boast of only one parliamentarian in the august House. 

Even that, Samia Yaba Nkrumah had to ride on the back of her father's legacy to go to Parliament. It is very sad indeed.  Our only hope is that the lady will willingly lead a crusade to rejuvenate the CPP.  People like Dan Lartey, Opesika Aggudey, Dr. Mahama and the old guards who have outlived their usefulness in the party should be pushed aside.  The likes of Freddie Blay, Professor Akorsah, Paa Kwesi Nduom, Kwaku Baako Jr. and the younger generation should rally behind the lady to revive the dying spirit of the party.  

It has been nearly three decades since an Nkrumaist party ruled this country.  That is the more reason why the younger generation should be made to understand and move in sympathy with the Nkrumaist ideology. 

The forty-year-old bank manager, Chief Executive Officer of a company, the Captain in the Ghana Army and Paramount Chief of a traditional area were barely ten years old when Limann ruled this country. 

For the nearly two years that the man held the reins of power, the nation laterally stood up and  started walking after being crippled by Rawlings and his over-zealous  scatter-brains who did nothing but killed and maimed innocent Ghanaians.  

In 1992, I voted for Dr. Hilla Limann and his PNC even though I sincerely knew he would not win the election.  I did so to register my protest against the way he was treated by Rawlings after his overthrow.  When a PNC parliamentarian accepted a ministerial appointment in the current NDC government, I realized how shameless politician could be when it comes to power.  This man and his boss, Dr. Mahama, have so soon forgotten what happened to Limann. 

This was an elected executive president of Ghana who was overthrown unjustifiably.  Several charges were leveled against him but he was never taken to court to answer these charges.  He lived in this country for twelve years without any pension being paid to him and died a pauper. 

Out of annoyance and desperation, he willed that Ghanaians should not attempt to give him any state burial.  Truly, not a soldier discharged his farewell shot as his body was sent to Gwellu, his ancestral home, for burial.  How sad!!!  

Rawlings, the man who treated  Limann so shabbily, later formed his own party with state funds and today, Dr. Mahama's parliamentarian is serving in an NDC  government in the name of 'all inclusive'.  Oh, memory, where has thou flown to?

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