Ghanaian Political Leaders - A Bunch of Disappointingly Corrupt, Ineffective and Inefficient Liars

The final days of the year 2011 has brought into the fore several interesting news articles, one of which was about the President's visit to the US in the last week of the year 2011.

I accomplished my mission on US trip - Mills

This year 2011, Christmas Day (December 25) fell on a Sunday and as such Monday December 26 was declared and observed by most businesses (including the US New York Stock Exchange, the doyen or citadel of capitalism) as a holiday. The same rationale applies to New Year Day, which is Sunday January 2, 2012. Monday January 2, 2012 is being observed as a public holiday in the US.

It is, therefore, out of a total shock and surprise to hear the President of Ghana, His Excellency John Atta Mills, make an assertion that "In the US the 26th of December is not a holiday; it is the 25th so I used those days.................." and be proud of it when in reality he was lying to the Ghanaians and the international community!

What has become of the Office of the Ghanaian Presidency, its communications team and the Ministry of Disinformation? As one of my cousins rightly put it “Well, communication is a specialized field and people are trained to manage it strategically. So if you leave it for untrained hands and minds believing that they speak "good English" as someone told me in Ghana, this is what you get. This NDC administration is simply a disaster!”.

Now let us make some assumptions as to why the President might have rushed back to the US on Christmas Eve (December 24, 2011), two weeks after he came back from several weeks on holidays and an official visit to Canada.

1. If it is assumed that he did not want to participate in or be present during the controversial 30th anniversary celebration of the 31 December Revolution, this is not the best way to go about it.

The continued celebration of this event in Ghana has touched on some sore points of several people and its relevance is still questionably debatable. It is a fact that the summary execution of some of the military officers at the time was uncalled for. Take the case for the following officers - Major General E. K. Utuka, Rear Admiral Joy Komla Amedume, Col. Roger Joseph Felli, who were originally buried in unmarked graves at Adoagyiri near Nsawam in the Eastern Region of Ghana but their mortal remains later handed over to their families at a ceremony at the Garrison Methodist and Presbyterian Church in Accra and subsequently re-buried. What crime did they actually commit - abusing public office for their personal gains? Is it just because they were at the hierarchy of their divisions? Or was it just an ethnic balance in other to satisfy the other ethnic groups whose members in the military were being executed in 1979?

Currently, do we not have members of both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) who are more corrupt than most of the past officers who were summarily executed because of perceived corrupt acts and for allegations of willfully causing financial loses to the Republic of Ghana?

It is worthy to note that if proven in a court of law to be a crime, the largest financial loss to the Republic of Ghana could be the potential Mr. Alfred Agbesi Woyome - Ghana Government settlement involving both the NPP and the NDC governments. Rumors have it that both former President John Agyekum Kufuor and his former Chief of Staff Mr. Kwadwo Okyere Mpiani may be deeply involved in willfully causing this potential financial loss to the Republic of Ghana. Should these personnel also be summarily executed or imprisoned if found guilty in a competent court of law (if there is any such competent court of law anymore in Ghana)? What happened to the NPP looters of the nation of Ghana that H.E. President John Atta Mills and his NDC government have refused to prosecute? Is this inability to prosecute the NPP looters due to the brokered deal between John Atta Mills and Ex-President John Agyekum Kufuor by the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II (a.k.a. King Solomon, who is now being given a derogatory nickname), another partner whose name is immersed in rumored cocaine dealing criminal activities? During the brokering of this deal, John Agyekum Kufuor had to kneel down in front of President John Atta Mills and beg for forgiveness. Let us not forget that John Agyekum Kufuor was a former minister in the then PNDC (now NDC) government of former President Jerry John Rawlings, and as such had an insider privilege that he used to make his way into the presidency of the Republic of Ghana under the NPP government.

Because of the brokered deal and other factors, Stephen Asamoah-Boateng (Asabee) and Co, Charles Wireko Brobbery (Tarzan, a cousin of John Agyekum Kufuor) and the others are still walking the corridors of Ghana free! What about the case of the MV Benjamin cocaine dealers and peddlers? What do you expect from the corrupt judiciary when a judge who was tasked to investigate the MV Benjamin case was subsequently made a Chief Justice of Ghana? Several other looters of Ghana government are also visibly enjoying their booties in the name of NPP's “Property Owning Democracy” among other corruption-ridden capitalistic doctrines!

Daniel Kwashie Abodakpui and Victor Selormey were meritoriously jailed for swindling the state. The monies involved were actually in their personal accounts and could have been retrieved if desired. Mr. Tsatsu Tsikata's case was a situation where the former President John Agyekum Kufuor had a direct hand in what transpired in court against all evidence in favor of the accused – he set the tone for the beginning and the closure of the case. In the case of Mr. Kwame Peprah and others, the judge said “they were going in for not doing due diligence”. So that might also pass as such. But in comparison with Brobbey, the former IGP and others in the NPP, did they also do due diligence?

2. The President has informed us that “I had to take a very important decision. I had a few assignments to undertake in the US and I told myself, why don't you take advantage of the holidays?

Even if he has to attend to an urgent medical condition, what is wrong with the President and his communications team telling the truth about that? How long have rumors been going round about his poor condition of health and how long has he survived after those rumors came out? As human beings, we will get seriously sick at one point or another in our stressful life and need medical intervention. The medical records of any head of state are for public consumption but not in Ghana in particular or in Africa as a whole. Last week, it was announced that the President of Argentina had cancer and will be operated on January 4, 2012. We were also told that former Brazilian President Lula da Silva also had throat cancer, so also was Julio Chavez of Venezuela. Has any one of these presidents been "harmed or killed" in any way?

If our hospitals are being taken good care of as they should have been, would there be the need for our politicians to be seeking medical treatment overseas? Why should they be afraid of seeking medical care in Ghanaian hospitals, a healthcare system that has become death traps? A system where unseasoned medical practitioners are killing patients that otherwise could have survived their ailments.

3. Granted – the President had unfinished business to accomplish as a follow up to his previous visit to the US where a number of investors have lined up to meet with him. To multi-task, the Presidents informed us that “Instead of spending your holidays in Ghana, you could kill so many birds with one stone; forgo part of your holidays, go to the US and make the necessary contacts, which I did”.

A report about his "Christmas time" visit to the US stated that a secured DIFD support for SADA was the result of President J. E. A. Mills' personal intervention through Professor Jeffery Sachs, a renowned development expert and Director of the Earth Institute of the Columbia University.

Meanwhile, it is on record that on the 16th of September 2011, this same deal was announced by Dr. Joseph Mensah-Homiah, Team Leader, Millennium Villages Project and the report posted on the Government of Ghana website. (http://www.ghana.gov.gh/index.php/news/regional-news/northern/7497-p18-million-for-sada-millennium-village-project).

4. The physical presence of the President between leaving Ghana on the 24th of December 2011 and 31st of December is also well documented. What was he doing in the Maryland and Washington, DC area? Actually, the president was with the boys at Maryland. These are the very people he did not want to see on his US trips, but elections are around the corner, so the need to see them now - joke!

It should be noted that Ghanaians are becoming wiser than the politicians think and as such are able to read through the lines.

Thanks for taking tour time to read this article. Rejoinders are welcome as usual.

A. Kobla Dotse
[email protected]