Nii Lante's Chicanery

Nii Lantey Vanderpuye

If only characters like Nii Lante Vanderpuye would stop trying to make themselves relevant in the post-Mills National Democratic Congress (NDC) government, the now dropped political temperature in Ghana could remain so for sometime to come.

With all signs pointing to their slide to political irrelevance, it is not surprising that Nii Lante put out his chicanery of a narration about what the late Mills said each time he claimed he visited the ailing president.

For a man who claimed that the former president was not indisposed and was as fit as a fiddle, his narration lacks the ingredients of a veracious story.

The noveau riche politician, as in the fashion of a drowning man, is catching all straws to remain afloat but these would not save him, especially if President Mahama discovers how unwise it would be to have such characters around him.

The unnecessary disclosures about the plaintive complaints alleged to have been made by former President John Evans Atta Mills of blessed memory, according to him, pose a number of questions.

Spending over an hour on a daily basis with the president bespeaks of gossip and the undermining of other government appointees, which he Nii Lante was constantly engaged in, if indeed he was spending those hours with the president.

We are also saddened by the possibility that given our knowledge about how the deceased could only put in only three hours in office and was, according to Nii Lante, spending an hour-and-half with him, much could not be achieved in the way of running state affairs.

Perhaps, considering the often made charge that our departed president was not in charge of running the state and that some appointees did so on his behalf and in a manner that favoured their financial desires, we are tempted to express our disappointment at what we went through as a serious nation.

Be that as it may, we wonder why Nii Lante would like to debase the status of the deceased by alluding gossips to him. That is not alone. He sought to transmit a message that the deceased passed out by the sheer pressure of verbal attacks at the hands of former President Rawlings and Ken Kuranche, editor in chief of the Searchlight newspaper.

Although Nii Lante's disclosures have been largely condemned as lies and deserving contemptuous treatment, it is our position that not exposing him would be akin to lying about the health status of a president as they did in the case of the late President Mills.

Insulting elements like Nii Lante should be pushed to the peripheries of local politics, lest they set this country on fire. We deserve a break from characters like Nii Lante, now that the death of President Mills has lowered the political temperature in the country.

May the soul of our late president rest in peace.